


Listening from the Sidelines

by RedRowan



Series: Stars and Horns [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Daredevil (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Bisexual Matt Murdock, Canon Disabled Character, Canon-Typical Violence, Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Spoilers, F/M, Female Matt Murdock, Rule 63, Season/Series 02 Spoilers, girl!Matt Murdock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-21
Updated: 2016-06-16
Packaged: 2018-06-09 17:58:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 38,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6917422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedRowan/pseuds/RedRowan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You fight your battles, and I'll fight mine."  </p><p>That had been the agreement, when Steve and Mattie had started dating.  Except when Steve's life spirals out of control after the disaster in Nigeria, Mattie finds herself caught in a situation that's dangerous to both her civilian and superhero identities.</p><p>It's the girl from Hell's Kitchen and the boy from Brooklyn against the Sokovia Accords, and they're not going down without a fight.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. New York

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be a short epilogue to Always in the Wake, to catch up on Steve and Mattie after Civil War. It...expanded...

Mattie runs her finger along the rim of the shield. It doesn’t ring the way that metal usually does. It’s…disconcerting.

“It’s…just _weird_ …” she says. “It’s like…” She listens to the way the sound is absorbed by the vibranium. “I can’t hear _anything_ from it. It’s like a sonic vacuum.”

Steve laughs. “I think you’re the first person who’s ever cared that much about what it _sounds_ like.”

She tosses it back to him, upright, and he catches it one-handed. “Are you really surprised?” she says.

“Not at all.” He adjusts his grip on the shield, holding it horizontally by the rim, and draws it back. “OK, we’ll just start with catching it. Don’t try to stop it straight on, it’ll break your arm at full speed. Try to work _with_ the momentum.”

“Got it.”

Last weekend, she’d asked him to teach her how to use the shield when they were training at Fogwell’s, and he’d said they’d probably demolish the place if they started throwing it around inside. So he’d brought her to the Tower today to use the gym, and it’s a little strange. For all the activity on the lower floors, the Tower seems empty; no other Avengers, no JARVIS, even Maria’s gone now. Even FRIDAY seems quieter than usual.

On the plus side, it means they won’t be disturbed.

Steve starts by tossing the shield to her lightly. She catches it, letting her body absorb the momentum. They gradually move further apart, until they’re on opposite sides of the gym, and Steve is throwing at full force. Mattie catches the shield, lets the weight of it swing her around, and releases it back to him in one movement.

“Nice,” he says. “OK, try a ricochet.” He demonstrates, bouncing the shield off a wall to her. She tries to do the same, but it bounces in the wrong direction. Steve leaps through the air to catch it, rolling to his feet.

“That should _not_ have happened!” Mattie says indignantly.

“Hey, it’s tough to figure out the physics of it…” teases Steve.

“I know how the physics works,” she says haughtily, and she marches over to her bag on the bench. Steve had said that as a _quid pro quo_ , she had to teach him to use the billy clubs, so she pulls one out now, and throws it back against the wall, not bothering to turn around. There’s a metal clang (half-absorbed by the vibranium) as Steve blocks it with the shield. He picks it up, and holds it experimentally, before tossing it at the wall. It hits the wall flat, and falls to the floor.

“Huh. It’s a bit different,” he says, picking up the club. 

“Yeah, _mine_ makes sense.”

He throws the shield to her. “Trick is,” he says, “remember that the shield’s curved, not flat. It’s not gonna ricochet like a…”

“Frisbee?”

“I was gonna say discus, but sure. You gotta think in three dimensions when it comes to the angles.”

“Same thing with the clubs,” she says. “except that you have to figure out the spin on the club as well. You can do either end-over-end or spinning along the length.”

“Right. OK.” He holds up the club. “On three?”

She hoists the shield. “On three.”

They test out ricochets for a while, getting the feel for each other’s weapons. At the beginning, they’re running and diving to catch wobbly or stray projectiles, but after some time, it starts coming naturally. Mattie finds herself adjusting faster and faster to the transition between weapons, until she can release the shield into a three-point ricochet, catch her club coming at her, and send it back to Steve in one fluid motion. They work the second club into the mix, so that they can’t stop moving because there’s always a weapon in the air.

After the throwing training, they move on to hand-to-hand; Steve teaching her how to use the shield both offensively and defensively, and Mattie teaching him how to transition between the two clubs to the staff and back. 

Finally, they spar, Mattie using the shield and Steve using the clubs. Mattie’s smaller than Steve, so the shield covers more of her, and she uses that advantage to block his blows before ducking out to land a punch. Eventually, she drives him backwards with the shield, until his back is against the wall, and then she jumps and wraps her leg around his shoulders, throwing him to the ground and landing astride him, the shield pinning one arm to the floor. He taps out. She lifts the shield, and bends down to kiss him, making his heartrate speed up in a way it never does when he fights. The clubs clatter as he drops them to the floor, and he puts both arms around her.

“That was fun,” she says quietly.

“We should do it again,” he says. She pulls away and stands up, holding out her hand. He takes it and she helps him up. “Call it? Or do you want to do more?”

She shakes her head. “I think I’m good for now.” She slides her arm out from the shield’s straps and holds it out to him. “I _do_ want to get more practice with that, though.”

“Wouldn’t mind some more time with these, either,” he says, taking the shield and picking up the clubs. “Next weekend?”

“Yeah, that sounds nice.” She takes the clubs from his outstretched hand, and goes back to her bag. “I’m gonna grab a shower before dinner.” Steve wants to take her out tonight.

“Yeah, good plan.”

She’s not surprised when Steve slips into the bathroom while she’s showering; she smiles to herself, and keeps rinsing the conditioner out of her hair as if she hadn’t noticed. The glass door of the shower opens with a squeak of the rubber seal.

“Mind if I come in?” he says.

And she can’t hold in the broad smile on her face as she reaches out and pulls him under the water. He kisses her, hands sliding over her wet skin, and she hears the crinkle of a condom packet in his palm.

“Mm, came prepared, I see,” she murmurs.

“Important tactical skill,” he says, kissing the side of her neck.

She gently maneuvers him so that his back is against the tile, and slides her hand around his cock, slowly stroking it as he slips his tongue into her mouth. As he gets harder, she works her hand faster, until he groans into her mouth, and turns them around so that she’s pinned against the wall, and he’s kissing her so hard she can feel the blood pumping in his lips. Their hands fumble together, and she pulls the condom packet out of his grasp and opens it, rolling it onto his cock as he leans his forehead against hers, panting.

“How do you -“ she starts to ask, but he cuts her off with another bruising kiss before she can finish the question. He seems to know what she was asking anyway, because his hands slide down her body to her thighs, and then he’s gripping them hard, lifting her up and spreading her legs so that she has to cling to his shoulders and hook her knees over his hips to stay upright. The movement sends a shiver through her that goes straight between her legs, and she can smell how wet she is for him. She moans something, maybe his name, as he braces her against the wall, and holds her up with one arm under her ass, and he just chuckles and kisses the underside of her jaw.

“I love you,” he whispers against her skin, and he uses his free hand to guide himself inside her. She feels every inch of him as he slowly enters her, using gravity to pull her down onto him, and that tears another moan from her throat. When he’s fully inside her, he starts to thrust his hips, and she feels her back sliding against the wet tile as he moves harder and faster, and she hears a voice echoing in the bathroom, and then realizes that it’s hers. She feels her orgasm building, heat radiating through her, and her muscles tighten around him as she _screams_ helplessly.

He keeps moving inside her, chasing his own orgasm, his breath coming in harsh gasps. Her senses always feel more acute during sex, but because of the running water, she isn’t surrounded by the smell of sex the way she usually is, so she can focus on the sounds of his body, and the feel of his skin against hers and his cock inside her. His heart is beating fast, his body temperature is raised, and she knows exactly when he’s going to come, so she whispers “I love you,” into his ear the moment before he does. He groans, his head dropping against her shoulder, and she feels his cock twitch inside her as he slows and stills.

They manage to disentangle themselves without slipping, and wash each other down, veering dangerously close to needing to go a second round, but Steve only brought in the one condom, and they have dinner plans. Mattie slips out of the shower, and chuckles when she feels the temperature in the bathroom drop as Steve turns off the hot water. It’s going to be one of _those_ nights.

Except that Steve’s phone rings while they’re getting dressed. Mattie hears the conversation with Natasha perfectly; the Avengers have intel on HYDRA operatives in Nigeria, and have to leave tonight.

“Yeah, I’ll…” Steve says, trying to hide his disappointment. “I’m at the Tower right now, I’ll be on the pad in an hour.”

“See you then,” Natasha says, and hangs up.

“You heard?” Steve says.

“Yeah,” Mattie says. “Nigeria?”

“Yeah. Nat says that Rumlow’s been spotted, it’s our best shot at him since Washington.” He sits down on the bed next to her. “Sorry I can’t make our date.”

“It’s OK, I get it.” She does, probably more than anyone. She’s disappointed her fair share of people because of Daredevil.

“You sure you don’t want to come? I hear Nigeria’s beautiful this time of year.” It’s a running joke between them; any time he’s called away on a mission, he asks her to come with him, always saying “I hear it’s beautiful this time of year.” He still hasn’t given up hope that she’ll join the Avengers.

“Nah. There’s a prostitution ring I was going to bust up, that should keep me occupied.”

“How is it that you make that sound so attractive?” he says, putting his arm around her.

“You just have a fetish for justice,” she says, and he kisses her, soft and deep and perfect.

Then the moment’s gone, and she can practically _feel_ Captain America take over from Steve Rogers. He efficiently packs his gym clothes, which she’ll take back to her apartment, and calls the support staff to arrange for someone to drive Mattie home. FRIDAY announces the quinjet’s arrival, and Mattie goes with him to the landing pad.

The gangway drops, and Natasha steps out.

“Hey, Mattie,” she says.

“Hey, Nat.”

“You gonna let me borrow this guy?”

“Sure, but bring him back in one piece. I kinda like him.”

“I can’t help if he decides to be an idiot.”

“That’s fair.”

“Thanks,” says Steve. He leans over and kisses Mattie on the lips. “I’ll call you when I get back. Have fun with your prostitution ring.”

“Love you. Go kick some ass.”

Then they’re gone in a blast of hot air carrying the smell of metal and fuel, and Mattie’s alone on the landing pad.

If she’s a little more ruthless, and hits a little harder as she takes down the prostitution ring that night, the reports don’t say, and she doesn’t waste time considering it too deeply. She leaves the pimps trussed up on the sidewalk with a printed label saying “Delivery for Det. Mahoney,” and smiles as one of the girls takes advantage of their prone state to kick one of them in the balls. She seems the most likely to keep her head, so Mattie puts her in charge of taking care of the rest of the girls, and waits on a nearby rooftop until Brett shows up.

The apartment’s cold and empty when she gets home, and she checks her laptop for any news of the Avengers, then remembers that they’re probably still somewhere over the Atlantic (one of the unexpected results of dating Captain America is that she can now calculate international flight times in her head).

There’s no news through all of Sunday. She goes to Mass, and prays for their safety, and has a latte with Father Lantom afterwards. She confesses to Father Lantom that she doesn’t tell Steve that she prays for him.

“Matilda, of all the secrets you could be keeping from him, I think that’s a fairly minor one,” he says dryly.

There’s still no news on Monday morning when she wakes up. She finds the office in the middle of the usual Monday morning disarray, Becky trying to organize their clients into some sort of reasonable order, and there’s no time to check the news through her first few meetings. But around ten-thirty, she hears the word “Avengers” from the reception area, and freezes.

“I’m sorry, could you repeat that?” she asks her client, and she has to finish the meeting, but she’s only half-listening, the other ear trying to discern the conversation happening in reception between one of her clients and his girlfriend.

“No, it looks like Scarlet Witch blew the guy up,” the girlfriend is saying.

“Jesus,” says the guy.

_Is Steve hurt, are any of them hurt, what happened, what happened, what happened?_

She finishes the meeting, and tells Becky she needs fifteen minutes. She’s immediately on the BBC website, listening to the radio report. Altercation between the Avengers and presumed HYDRA operatives. Civilian casualties, severe property damage, most of the blame being placed on Wanda Maximoff. The Wakandan government is already calling for international regulation of the Avengers.

She picks another website, listens to another report. It’s not until the third website that someone mentions that Captain America appears to have fled the scene with the rest of the Avengers in tow.

Mattie starts breathing again. _He’s fine, he’s alive, he’s coming back._ Her hands are shaking.

“Regulation” is a scary word. She knows Steve’s knee-jerk reaction to it, after the disasters of the World Security Council and SHIELD, is to refuse, to mistrust agendas, to trust only his own moral compass.

Not that she’s any different.

But now there’s fuel to the fire, dead civilians to hold up and declare that the Avengers need oversight.

 _And where does that leave me? Or Frank, or Peter?_ Not that Frank would care. But Peter’s just a kid, and he thinks he has a _responsibility_ to use his powers. And then there’s Jessica, who Mattie keeps her distance from because she’s Foggy’s client, and Mattie doesn’t want to muddy those waters.

_How far does it go, until it reaches us?_

Christine is working the reception for the medical clinic, and Mattie asks if Claire has a moment. She spills the news in a rush at the nurses’ station, and Claire puts her hands on Mattie’s arms.

“But Steve’s fine?” she says.

“I don’t know,” Mattie says. “All I could get was that he’d left with the rest of the Avengers.”

“So they’re probably all flying back right now, and he’ll call you when they land.” Claire’s using her “I’m the only sane person in the room” voice. “The rest of it? That’s _his_ problem, it’s not yours, you can’t take it on.” She squeezes Mattie’s arms. “You can’t fix it by punching someone.”

“You can if you find the right someone.” There’s a pause, and Mattie’s sure Claire rolled her eyes.

“Sure. Go punch the King of Wakanda, or the UN Secretary General, see how well that goes.” Mattie laughs shakily. “Have a cup of coffee, you’ll feel better.”

Steve calls her in the evening, when she’s half-dressed in the Daredevil suit.

“Hey. Guessing you saw the news?” he says.

“Yeah. Is everyone all right?”

“Yeah, we’re - Wanda’s pretty shaken up, but we’re all OK.”

“How are you?”

“I’m…” He trails off, and she can just imagine him, running a hand through his hair in frustration. “It was my fault, Rumlow was screwing with my head, Wanda shouldn’t have had to deal with it -“

“Steve,” she says, cutting him off. “You did what you could, you always do. And I’m sure it would have been a lot worse if you hadn’t been there.”

He pauses. “Yeah,” he concedes. “That won’t be any comfort to the families, though.”

“No,” she says softly. “But sometimes we have to live with that.”

They’re quiet for a moment, as if they could feel the other’s presence at the other end of the phone.

“Do you want to come down tonight?” she says.

“I shouldn’t,” he says. “Tony’s coming up tomorrow, I need to be here.”

“OK.”

“I’ll come down on Friday.”

“I’ll see you then.” And he chuckles, a little hollow, but still genuine, because he pretends he hates her blind jokes, but he’s lying.

“I love you.”

“I love you too.”

She puts on the mask, and meets Peter on a rooftop on the East side. It’s a quiet night, so she spends most of it teaching him how to focus his senses, the two of them just sitting on the edge of the roof and sifting through the layers of information that New York gives them. Sometime around two in the morning, they hear a mugging four blocks away, and swing down to stop it.

“Well, if this is the best we can do, I think it’s time to call it a night,” Mattie says. She resists saying that Peter has school tomorrow.

Peter shoots a wad of webbing over one of the mouthier muggers’ face, cutting off some gendered epithets being thrown at Mattie.

“That’s no way to talk to a lady,” he says, trying to be stern. Mattie thinks it’s like a puppy trying to attack, but it’s probably more intimidating after he’s punched you a few times. “Sure,” he says to her, “I’ve got stuff to do, people to see..” He watches her hoist her club, about to shoot the grappling end. “You know,” he says awkwardly, “I could make you some web shooters. I mean, if you wanted them. Just, they’re useful, and you do this more than me, and I thought that you might - not that your stuff isn’t awesome, but -“

“Thanks,” she says, before he starts rambling himself in a circle. She knows he has a bit of a crush on her, she doesn’t want to be cruel. “But I’m good. Besides, it would probably screw up the imagery.” She waves a hand over her horns. “But remind me to talk about your outfit sometime soon.” She _really_ needs to introduce him to Melvin, otherwise he’s going to take a knife wound one of these days and discover how non-protective cloth is. She shoots the grappler, and swings away, back towards Hell’s Kitchen.

The next day, her phone starts announcing Steve’s name while she’s in a meeting; she has to excuse herself because Steve wouldn’t call while she’s working unless it’s important.

“Hey, everything all right?” she says.

“It’s Peggy,” he says, and she can hear that he’s barely holding on. “She’s…” His voice shakes. “She passed a few hours ago.”

It’s not a surprise, not really. Peggy was in her nineties, after all, they’ve been expecting this ever since Peggy asked to return to England. But the emptiness in Steve’s voice hits her in her gut, and she remembers how she’d felt when Elektra died.

“Sweetheart, I’m so sorry,” is all she can say. There’s a pause, and she knows that Steve is trying to keep his grip, trying not to break.

“The funeral’s in three days,” he says. “In London. Sam’s going to come with me, but -“

“Do you want me to come?” She can arrange for someone to cover her clients for a few days, and she even has a passport now.

“Yeah, I really do.”

“OK.”

“We’re flying out tonight. Pick you up at the Tower?”

“I’ll be there.”

She has Becky reschedule anything she can for the rest of the week, and calls Jen Walters to cover anything that can’t be moved. Then she goes home and packs enough clothes for a week. She packs her soap and shampoo, and various toiletries because she can’t be sure she’ll find anything with a scent she can stand in London. She packs a strip of condoms, because she has no idea what Steve’s grieving process is going to be like, and she’ll be there for him however he needs her. After some hesitation, she throws her clubs into the bag; being prepared never hurt anyone.

She only has one black dress. She finds it by the braille label on the hanger, and holds it between her hands. _Too many funerals._ Elena’s. Ben’s. Grotto’s. Elektra’s. And now Peggy Carter’s. She’s starting to hate this dress.

She folds it up and puts it in the bag with a pair of high heels.

FRIDAY welcomes her to the Tower, and tells her that Steve and Sam are in the common room. She hears them talking when the elevator is five floors below, about “the Accords.” And Tony. It seems that regulation has already arrived.

She steps off the elevator, and they both fall silent.

“Mattie,” says Steve, and then he’s coming at her, pulling her to him and holding her tight, burying his nose in her hair.

“Hey,” she says after he’s had a moment. She puts her hand on his face, feeling the frown and the creases between his eyebrows. “How are you holding up?” He just shakes his head.

“Had better days.”

“Yeah. Sorry I’m late, I thought we were -“

“No, you’re not late,” interrupts Sam. “We just - had to get out of the Mansion.” Steve releases his hold on her, and Sam hugs her. “Glad you’re here,” Sam says.

“Me too.”

There’s an awkward pause, because none of them are quite sure what to say.

“Uh, we can get going, if that’s OK with everyone,” says Steve, and Mattie’s never heard him sound so lost.

“Yeah, let’s do that,” Sam says, and he takes Mattie’s bag as Steve takes her hand.

On the flight, Sam tells her about the Sokovia Accords, and the split between the Avengers. He doesn’t have a copy, so Mattie plans on downloading one she can run through her screen reader once they get to London.

“International law isn’t my forte,” she says, “but I’ll have a look, see if there’s anything that we can dispute.”

Sam turns his head, and Mattie thinks he’s glancing at Steve at the controls.

“I don’t think we can lawyer our way out of this one,” he says.

“That’s because you’re not a lawyer,” she says.

After an hour or so, Steve and Sam switch places, and Steve sits down next to Mattie. She reaches over and takes his hand, and he squeezes it. She’s not sure if he wants to talk or not.

He doesn’t say anything for a long time, then he puts his arm around her and pulls her to him, clinging to her like he’s drowning. Maybe he is.

“Thank you,” he whispers.

“Anything you need,” she says. She’s at an awkward angle, sitting next to him, so she slides onto his lap and puts her arms around his shoulders, and he leans his head against hers. They stay like that for a while, holding onto each other while the world drops away, and Mattie falls asleep to the sound of Steve’s heart.


	2. London

They land in London early in the morning, and the hotel lets them check in and go up to their rooms. Steve and Mattie collapse onto the bed, and Mattie immediately regrets not packing her silk sheets. Steve wraps an arm around her as he falls asleep, and she lies awake, thankful that he can at least sleep. She remembers some nights after Elektra’s death, when she’d come home after being out as Daredevil, and try to drink herself into unconsciousness because sleep wouldn’t come. She brushes a hand over Steve’s hair.

_It won’t be that bad for him. He’s not alone. He has me._

She manages to doze for an hour or so, but the unfamiliar surroundings wake her up. Steve’s still asleep, so she tries to search the room for the wifi password, but can’t find it, and winds up calling down to reception. She can’t tell if the receptionist is being snotty or polite. _Ah, the English._ She downloads a copy of the Sokovia Accords (publicly available, thank you, UN) onto her laptop, and listens to it from her screen reader, clause by clause.

It’s a _long_ fucking document.

She quietly dictates notes onto her phone, trying not to wake Steve. The Accords are nearly airtight, not that she was expecting any less. Any Avenger who doesn’t sign will automatically be considered a private citizen, with no access to the Avengers’ resources, and open to prosecution for vigilantism.

_So where does that leave us?_

According to Sam, Tony consulted on the Accords; he knows about her, and can’t have missed Frank Castle’s case on the news. Peter’s been a hit on Youtube, and Mattie would be surprised if they aren’t at least aware of Jessica’s existence. And then there’s the guy Claire met, the one with unbreakable skin…

And that’s just in New York.

The Accords don’t take them into account. Mattie has an epiphany somewhere around the hundredth clause, and it takes a lot of effort not to throw her laptop across the room.

“Hey, you working?” says Steve from the bed. She’d been so focussed on the Accords that she hadn’t heard him wake up.

“No. Not really,” she says, pulling out her headphones.

“You look mad.”

“I’m -“ She gestures vaguely at her laptop. “I’m actually listening to the Accords.”

Steve climbs out of bed and sits on the end facing her. Their room isn’t very big, so his knees are almost touching hers.

“You find anything?” he says.

She shakes her head. “No. Sorry. I haven’t finished yet, but it doesn’t look good. Pretty much, if they ratify it, you’re screwed.” Steve drops his head to his hands, running his fingers through his hair. “But that’s almost beside the point,” she continues.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, _none_ of this is actually addressing the issue.” She throws her hands up in frustration. “This is just a band-aid so the politicians can pretend they’re in control of a situation that they have _no_ idea what to do about.”

“Which is?”

“People with…abilities have been showing up more and more frequently, and people are terrified. So they blame the Avengers, because you’re the biggest target, but _this_ -“ she shakes her hand at her laptop, “- isn’t going to stop the next Loki or the next Ultron -“

“Actually, it might stop the next Ultron, if it means somebody’s keeping an eye on Tony.”

She laughs humourlessly. “OK, maybe. But HYDRA, the Hand, they’re still out there, and they’re not going to give a shit about the Accords except in how they can exploit them for themselves.”

“So what do you think I should do?”

She takes a deep breath, and tries to remember what being objective is like. “Legally, I would advise you that if you’re unwilling to sign, then you should retire somewhere quiet and wait until the next earth-shattering event happens and they ask for your help.”

“Somewhere quiet like Hell’s Kitchen?” He puts his hand on the side of her knee, and she can feel herself melting.

“I’d be willing to move to Brooklyn,” she whispers quietly, “if you wanted.”

He pauses, his thumb circling the skin of her thigh.

“And what does Daredevil think?” he says.

“You know what I’m going to say.”

“I still want to hear it.”

She leans forward.

“Fuck ‘em all,” she says, and he laughs. “Nobody ever gave you permission to be a hero. Don’t let them start now.”

He reaches out, threading his fingers through her hair, and kisses her hard. His hand on her leg grips the back of her knee, pulling her forward until she’s straddling his lap.

“So, are you advocating vigilantism, Miss Murdock?” he says between kisses.

“Be a bit of a hypocrite if I didn’t,” she says. _More than I already am._ He holds the back of her head, and kisses her slowly, his tongue moving against hers. He tastes like sleep and the energy drinks they keep on the quinjet, and she doesn’t care because he also tastes like Steve Rogers.

“You’re one, too, you know,” he says as he pulls away.

“One what?”

“A hero.”

She shakes her head, leaning against his forehead. “I’m really not.”

He puts both hands on her face, holding it between them. “You are to me,” he says, and his heart beats truth with every word.

_I’m a screwup who’s scared I’ll lose everyone I love._ But he’s kissing her again, the way he does sometimes, when the only word that comes to mind is “reverent.” He’s just in an undershirt and boxers, and she slides her hands down his back, and she starts to tug at the bottom of the shirt when he stops her. His heart beating hard, and he’s breathing deep, but it’s not out of lust. He leans his head on her shoulder, and she puts her arms around him.

“Sorry,” he mumbles. “I just…”

“It’s OK,” she whispers. “It’s OK.” She doesn’t know if he’s cried yet, for Peggy.

“Sam. Sam. Sam,” interrupts her phone. Steve pulls out of her arms.

“I should get that,” she says.

“Yeah. I’m going to go shower.”

Sam’s calling about finding a place to eat, and they wind up in a pub close to the hotel. Steve still isn’t saying much, so Mattie tells Sam her theories about the Accords. And gives him her advice as both a lawyer and a vigilante.

“And what if they come after you?” he says.

She shrugs. “Not like it wasn’t illegal before. Only difference is whether it’s the NYPD or the government trying to arrest me.” 

“What if that becomes part of the Avengers’ job?”

There’s an uncomfortable pause. Steve shifts in his chair.

“You think Tony would agree to that?” Mattie says. It hadn’t occurred to her.

“I think they might not give him a choice,” says Sam.

Steve puts his hand over Mattie’s and grips it hard.

“I wouldn’t want to be the man to order Tony Stark to do anything he didn’t want to do,” he says.

And the question lies there, unspoken, between the three of them: where does Tony Stark draw the line?

Steve offered to help Peggy’s daughter Angelica with the funeral arrangements, but she’d told him that she could handle it, so they spend the next day wandering London; they don’t do the touristy things, it wouldn’t seem right, so Steve tells her about when he’d been here, during the war, with Peggy and Bucky and the Howling Commandoes. He describes the skyline as they walk along the Thames, and she laughs and says that he makes it sound like some sort of science fiction movie.

“I think it might be,” he says.

They go to the Tate Modern, and Steve describes the artwork to her. _There’s something very intimate in experiencing art through someone else’s eyes_ , she almost says, but she shakes away the memory as Steve tells her about a Lichtenstein painting in such detail that she can almost feel it under her fingertips.

Dinner is awkwardly polite with Angelica, her husband Paul, and their children; they don’t seem to quite know what to make of Steve’s blind lawyer girlfriend, but Sam does what he does best, guiding the conversation away from painful topics and encouraging everyone to participate. Sam Wilson is a godsend, Mattie decides.

The funeral is in the morning. Mattie sits with Sam while Steve carries Peggy’s casket, and she wonders if he’ll do the same for her, when it’s her turn (she has no illusions, she knows her choices will send her to an early grave). The smell of salt tears floats in the air; Peggy was loved, by a lot of people. She can smell them on Steve when he sits down beside her, and she knows that he’s fighting them back. He starts a little in recognition when Peggy’s niece (grandniece?) delivers the eulogy, but just whispers “I’ll explain later” to her.

Two men lurk in the shadows at the back of the church. She can hear from the way their clothing moves that they’re armed, but their adrenaline isn’t up, they don’t seem to be looking for a fight. One has a prosthetic hand, the other’s eye sounds strange when he blinks, and she hears American accents when they nod approvingly and murmur, “Good turnout.” They’re gone before the ceremony ends.

After the ceremony, the congregation is milling about in front of the church, and Steve asks for a minute to himself, so Mattie stays outside with Sam, who gets caught in a conversation with one of Peggy’s many proteges from SHIELD.

“Hey, Murdock, right?” a guy says in a New York accent.

“Uh, yeah.” She offers her hand in confusion.

“Yeah, I’ve seen you around, back home. Mike Sousa, I’m with the 17th precinct.” _Oh, a cop. I hope I’ve never beaten him up._ He shakes her hand.

“Nice to meet you.”

“So…how’d you know my Nana?” _And Peggy’s grandson._

“Oh, I didn’t. Steve - my boyfriend - he knew her.”

“You mean Steve Rogers? You’re Steve Rogers’ girlfriend?”

“Yeah.”

“Man, Sharon is going to be so disappointed. She has such a crush on that guy. Sorry, I probably shouldn’t say that about your boyfriend.”

She shrugs. “It happens a lot. He’s…worth having a crush on.”

“I bet.” He pauses, shifting his weight. “Look, we’re - the family - we’re going to the pub down the street. The cousins say it’s a nice place. You guys are welcome to come, if you want.”

“I’d have to ask Steve. I don’t know how he’s doing, he might just want to go back to the hotel.”

“Right. Sure. ‘Course.”

She excuses herself and goes back inside. Steve’s not alone, and Mattie’s surprised to recognize the sound of Natasha’s voice. She’s not sure when Natasha arrived, or how she got into the church without Mattie noticing.

“…Staying together is more important than how we stay together,” Natasha is saying.

“What are we giving up to do it? Sorry, Nat, I can’t sign it,” Steve says.

“I know.”

“Well, then, what are you doing here?”

“I didn’t want you to be alone,” Natasha says. She’s not lying. She glances over and sees Mattie, halfway down the aisle. “But I guess I should have known you wouldn’t be.” She starts down the aisle, and pauses as she passes Mattie. “Look after him for me,” she says, and then she’s gone.

Mattie gives up on pretending to need the cane when the door closes behind her, and strides down the length of the church to Steve. He holds out his hand to her, and she takes it, leaning her cane against the pew and putting her other hand on his cheek.

“How are you holding up?”

He shakes his head. “Let’s just make it through the day,” he says honestly. She brushes her fingertips over his forehead, feeling the frown lines there.

“I met Peggy’s grandson outside,” she says. “He’s a cop in New York.”

“Mike. I’ve met him.”

“Yeah. He said they’re going to the pub down the street, asked if we wanted to go with them.”

“Do you want to?”

“It’s up to you.”

He pauses to think about it. “Yeah, I think I do.”

“OK.” She takes her cane, and wraps her hand around his elbow, and they start down the aisle. “So, what was the story about the niece? Sharon?”

“Oh, uh…” Steve shifts uncomfortably under her grip. “I knew her. In DC. Fury had her live next to me to keep an eye on me.”

“She’s SHIELD?”

“Not anymore.” There’s a pause.

“And?” she says.

“And what?”

“And what’s the part you’re not telling me?”

He sighs. “I asked her out. Once.” She laughs. “I thought she was a nurse! And Nat kept trying to set me up with SHIELD agents, and she seemed nice, and -“ She keeps giggling. “It’s not that funny.”

“Aside from the fact you unwittingly asked out the niece of your World War Two girlfriend?”

“I think she’s Peggy’s _grand_ niece,” he grumbles.

“How did you work with SHIELD for two years? You’re the most trusting person I know.”

And he gives another sigh, this one deeper and more painful. “Thought I was saving the world.” He opens the door of the church, but stops before he leads them through.

“What?”

“I told you about Project Insight, didn’t I? What HYDRA’s plan was?”

“Yeah, target potential enemies en masse and shoot them from the sky. Simple, effective, and terrifying.”

“I just realized - you were probably on that list.”

She opens her mouth to respond, but can’t think of anything to say, because the thought that HYDRA would ever target her seems ludicrous at first; she fights drug dealers and criminal kingpins and the occasional magic ninja or fifty, not secret ex-Nazis bent on world domination. Not that she _wouldn’t_ fight them; it’s just not something that comes up in Hell’s Kitchen very often.

“I’d never have known,” he says. “If you’d died, if they’d -“

“Hey,” she says, stepping in to him. “They didn’t, so you apparently saved my life. I call that a win.”

He cups her cheek with his hand. “Yeah. It is.”

They go to the pub with Peggy’s family. Almost inevitably, the Accords come up in conversation.

“I mean,” Mike is saying, “I’m in Midtown, right? I was there for the Incident, and I can tell you that nobody except the Avengers could have saved the city. And then we’ve got Daredevil -“ Sam chokes on his beer. Mattie finds him a napkin. “- and she doesn’t need anyone to tell her to take out Wilson Fisk or an army of fucking - sorry - ninjas. And it’s not like anyone else was stepping up to do that. It’s the same for you guys. I know who I trust, and it’s the ones who’ve got their feet on the ground.”

“Hey, you ever met her?” Mike’s brother Charlie says.

“Who, me?” says Sam.

“Yeah, I mean, you’re kinda in the same line of work, you ever…?”

Mattie is trying _very_ hard not to laugh.

“Never seen her in action,” Sam says, which is _technically_ true, since he’s never actually seen her in the suit, and he missed the fight with Ultron last year.

“Murdock has, though, right?” says Mike.

“I can honestly say I’ve never seen her,” Mattie deadpans.

“Nah, I mean, during the Fisk case, didn’t you guys -“

“Oh, no, she passed us information, but I never met her.” Also technically true.

“Mike’s jealous of his buddy Brett,” Charlie says. “He’s the one that D-D sends all her collars to.”

“D-D?” says Sam, and Mattie can tell that this is _not_ going away.

“Hey, I just want to meet the lady,” Mike says. Mattie decides that she might send some perps to the 17th when she gets back to New York. “She’s a badass.”

“And super-hot,” says Charlie, and Sam nods and hums in agreement. Mattie pokes his leg under the table.

She manages to steer the conversation away from herself before they get onto the subject of her ass (because it was _definitely_ headed in that direction), and Steve comes up behind them with the refills of beer he’d been sent to fetch. Sharon is with him, and he introduces her to Mattie and Sam. She seems nice enough.

“Hey, I was wondering if you could clear something up for us,” Mattie says to her.

“Sure.”

“The priest -“

“Reverend,” corrects Steve.

“Right. He said Peggy was your aunt?”

“Great-aunt, actually,” says Sharon. “But really, she was more of a grandmother to me than anything. My dad’s parents weren’t really around, and Aunt Peggy and Uncle Daniel pretty much adopted him when he moved to the States.”

“That sounds like Peggy,” Steve says quietly.

“So what was it like, having the Director of SHIELD as your grandma?” says Sam.

Sharon, Mike, and Charlie laugh, and launch into a series of stories about “Nana”: Peggy teaching them to shoot; that time Peggy cut down a sexist Army general; that Christmas Sharon “just stumbled on” some of Peggy’s classified documents.

Steve laughs genuinely, and it’s a relief to feel some of the tension he’s been carrying leave him.

Sam puts down his empty glass.

“You want another one?” Steve says.

“Nah, I’m good. Actually, thinking I might head back to the hotel, grab a nap,” Sam says.

“I think I might go with you,” Mattie says. “This whole jetlag thing is killing me.”

“Oh, I’ll just -“ Steve starts to get up, but Mattie puts her hand on his shoulder.

“No, you can stay if you want. Sam’ll get me back in one piece.” She goes to pull out her wallet.

“I’ll cover you,” Steve says, his hand on her arm.

“Thanks.” She leans forward and kisses his cheek.

Sam had chosen their hotel for its proximity to the church, so they walk back, Mattie’s hand tucked in Sam’s elbow.

“How’s he doing?” Sam says.

“Rough,” Mattie says. There’s a pause, the kind that Sam uses when he knows the other person wants to say more. “It’s just - I don’t know what to do. I’m terrible at this shit, and his life is falling apart, and all I can say is ‘How are you holding up?’”

“Maybe you don’t need to overthink it. Maybe he just needs you to be you.”

She snorts cynically. “Yeah, me being me has never done anyone any good.”

Sam tries to step out to cross the street, and Mattie holds him back as a car comes up on their right. “Shit, keep forgetting to look the other way,” he says. They cross the street. “I think your fanboy back there would disagree, D-D.” 

“Call me that again, you’ll find out how far I can shove a club up your ass.”

“Whoo, you kiss Captain America with that mouth?” She smirks at him, and they walk in silence for a few moments. “Seriously, Mattie, you’re here for him. That’s what matters.”

_Then why do I feel like I’m just listening to him suffer?_

She checks her emails when she gets back to the hotel, and catches up on the cases that Jen was covering for her. She sends a few back, asking Becky to prepare this or file that. Then she tries to nap on the sandpaper hotel sheets.

She’s just dozing off when her phone rings with Sam’s name.

“Sam?” she says sleepily.

“Someone just bombed the Accords summit in Vienna,” he says tightly.

“Jesus!” She sits bolt upright in bed.

“Just happened like twenty minutes ago.”

“Natasha was supposed to be there,” Mattie says, remembering what she’d overheard in the church.

“Tony and Rhodey too.”

“Did you call Steve?”

“Yeah, he’s coming up to my room.”

“I’ll come over, just let me put some clothes on.”

Steve is already in Sam’s room when she gets there. Sharon’s there too, already on the phone. The TV is on, the reporter stating details as they’re released.

“I got a text from Nat,” Sam says as he opens the door. “She’s fine, and Tony and Rhodey were nowhere near the blast.”

“Thank God.” Sam steps aside to let her in.

“Mattie,” Steve says, and she goes to him. He puts his hand on her back.

“…appears to be James Buchanan Barnes, also known as the Winter Soldier…” says the TV.

The entire room freezes.

_Bucky Barnes bombed the summit._ It doesn’t make any sense, not when he’s been hiding so effectively for two years.

Steve’s heart is pounding, and his adrenaline is rising, and his hand is gripping the back of Mattie’s dress tightly. She’s sure he doesn’t realize it.

“You’re going after him,” she says quietly. It’s not a question.

“Yeah.”

“Want me to come with?”

He shakes his head. “No.”

She nods. _You fight your battles, and I’ll fight mine._ That had been their agreement, when they’d started dating. Besides, there’s no way to tell how long the search for Bucky will go on, and she has a life back in New York.

Sharon hangs up her phone call.

“I need to get to work,” she says.

“We can give you a ride,” Steve says. “It’ll be faster.”

“Thanks.”

“I’ll need a favor, though.”

“Sure.”

“Can you arrange for Mattie to get a flight back to New York? We’re kind of stealing her ride.”

“Uh, yeah. Mike and Charlie are flying back to New York tomorrow, I’ll get you on the same flight.”

“Thanks,” Mattie says.

“We better go,” says Steve. “Meet you in the lobby in ten.”

He wraps Mattie’s hand around his arm, and they head back to their room. Steve packs his things quickly, and is almost out the door before he turns back and kisses Mattie, holding her tight to him.

“Go,” she whispers. “Find him.”

He nods. “I love you.”

“I know.”

And he’s gone.

Twenty minutes later, her phone announces, “Unknown number.”

“Hello?”

“Hey, Murdock? It’s Mike Sousa.”

“Oh, hi.”

“Sharon just called, said you’re flying out on the same flight tomorrow, asked if we could look after you? She gave me your number.”

“Oh, that’s not really necessary -“

“Nah, I’m not gonna let a blind woman wander around Heathrow on her own. We can pick you up at your hotel, if you want.”

“That’s…” She’ll never admit it, but the thought of navigating an international airport on her own is more than a little daunting. “Yeah, that would be great.”

“Sweet. We’ll be there for noon.”

She saves Mike’s number in her phone, and listens to BBC Radio’s reporting on the Vienna bombing. Ten minutes later, her ticket is emailed to her.

She tries to work. She calls Becky, and they actually manage to move some of her cases forward. There’s an opposing counsel who was trying to get a hold of her, so she calls him, and they have a lively debate over the exact reasons she thinks his client is a scumbag.

There’s no news, except that the entire world is now searching for Bucky Barnes. She hopes Steve finds him first.

And then she laughs, because she realizes that if Steve finds Bucky, the first thing he’s going to do is ask her to represent him.

_This is my life. I beat up criminals, date Captain America, and am probably going to wind up representing a brainwashed ex-HYDRA assassin._ She wonders what her dad would think of her.

Mike and Charlie pick her up from the hotel lobby at noon the next day, and they’re in a cab to the train station when Mike’s phone rings.

“Hey, Sharon?”

“Have you picked up Mattie yet?” Sharon says on the other end of the line.

“Uh, yeah, we’re in the cab right now.”

“Give her the phone.”

“Uh…OK…Mattie, it’s for you.” Mattie holds out her hand, and Mike puts the phone in it.

“Hello?” she says.

“Mattie? It’s Sharon.”

“Uh, hi.”

“Steve just got arrested in Bucharest.” _Shit._ “Sam too. And Bucky Barnes.” Sharon’s talking in a low voice, like she’s worried about being overheard. “They’re being transferred to Berlin.”

“Have they been charged yet?”

“Not yet. The Wakandans want them all extradited -“

“Why would the Wakandans want Steve and Sam?”

“The new king T’Challa was the one who brought them in. He’s claiming they obstructed the course of the investigation.”

The cab has stopped, and the driver is telling Mike and Charlie the fare. Mattie reaches for her purse, but Charlie says, “No, we’ll get it.”

“OK, who has custody of them right now?” she says into the phone.

“The US government, but they’re being brought here. Joint Counter-Terrorism Centre. Shit, my boss is looking for me. They should be landing here in about an hour.”

“OK, can you call me when they land?”

“Yeah, will do.”

She hangs up.

“Hey, Murdock, you need a hand?” comes Mike’s voice. They’ve unloaded the bags onto the sidewalk.

“Oh, yeah.” She holds out the phone. “Can you text Sharon my number?”

“Sure.” She tells him the number, and he texts it to Sharon, and then she pulls out her phone and calls Becky.

“Ugh, Mattie?” Becky sounds like she just woke up, and… _Shit, it’s seven in the morning in New York._

“Becky, sorry I woke you up, but this is important. I need the number for the US Embassy in Berlin. And the US Attorney’s Executive Office. And the Joint Counter-Terrorism Centre in Berlin.”

“Berlin? What’s in Berlin?”

“Our clients.”

“Since when do we have clients in Germany?”

“Since Steve Rogers got his ass arrested this morning. He’s in custody with Sam Wilson and James Buchanan Barnes, and we need to get in contact with them.”

There’s a pause as Becky processes the information. “Just so we’re clear, you just said we’re representing Captain America, Falcon, and the Winter Soldier?”

“Yep.”

“OK. I’ll send you those numbers. Anything else?”

“I’m going to need a flight from Heathrow to Berlin. Next available.”

“I’ll get on it.”

“You’re the best.”

“Damn right I am.”

Mattie ends the call, and Mike and Charlie hustle her into the train station. One Tube ride later, and they’re on a train to Heathrow. Mattie checks her emails, and Becky has come through: three phone numbers, one plane ticket, and a hotel reservation are waiting in her inbox.

She calls the embassy first; she’s bounced around for a while, until they argue that since her clients are in American custody, they are not entitled to consular visits.

Sharon calls a few minutes after they reach Heathrow. Mike and Charlie are helping her with her bag.

“They’re here,” Sharon says quietly. “We’ve impounded their gear. Steve’s asking for a lawyer.”

“Put me on speaker.” 

Sharon sighs, but does it. Mike takes her arm, and guides her to a bench to sit down.

“…better not look out the window and see anybody flying around in that,” she hears Sam say.

“Their lawyer’s on the phone,” Sharon says.

There’s a pause.

“What?” comes a man’s voice.

“She’s on speaker,” Sharon says.

“Hi,” Mattie says. “This is Mattie Murdock, I’m the attorney for Steve Rogers, Sam Wilson, and James Barnes. Who am I speaking to?”

There’s a pause.

“How did you get this number, Ms Murdock?” says the man.

“My assistant is very persuasive. You didn’t answer my question.”

“Everett Ross. I’m with the Joint Counter-Terrorism Centre.”

“Yes, I know. Mr Ross, what exactly is the legal situation with my clients?”

“I don’t have to -“

“Yes, you do, Mr Ross, unless you want to explain to your superiors how you managed to get any case against my clients thrown out of court for violation of due process.”

“Captain Rogers and Mr Wilson are facing charges under the Sokovia Accords, pending a decision from the Secretary of State. They are also facing extradition to Wakanda for obstruction of justice and assault on King T’Challa. Sergeant Barnes will undergo a psychological evaluation and is facing extradition to Wakanda for the murder of King T’Chaka.”

“Thank you, Mr Ross. I’ll be landing in Berlin in four hours, I’ll expect to meet with my clients once I arrive. Now please take the phone off speaker and give it to Captain Rogers.”

There’s some fumbling and beeping, and then Steve’s voice. “Miss Murdock.”

“Hey. Are you OK?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Sam’s fine, too.”

“And Bucky?”

“He’s…I don’t know. I haven’t seen him since Bucharest.”

“OK. Here’s what you do, and tell Sam the same thing: don’t say a fucking word without me there.” He laughs, he always does when she swears. “I mean it, Steve.”

“Yeah, I - I got it.”

“I’ll be there in a few hours. Just hang on until then.”

“Yeah. What’s the worst that can happen, right?”

“Please tell me you didn’t just say that.”

“Sorry.”

“I love you,” she says.

“I know.”

She hangs up. Mike and Charlie help her check in, but then they have to go to another terminal, so the airline’s staff take over, driving her to the lounge. She calls the US Attorney’s office, and after some time manages to talk to someone working on the case; she winds up on a conference call with the US Attorney’s office and the Wakandan Royal Prosecutor. They agree to drop the charges against Steve and Sam, but won’t budge on Bucky. It’s the best she can do from here, and hopefully Bucky’s psychological evaluation will help his case.

She’s exhausted by the time her flight boards, but her mind is moving at light speed. She wishes Foggy was here; she wants to bounce ideas off him, the way they used to. As the flight takes off, she thinks about him. She could ask him to co-counsel on the case. It’s big enough that she can legitimately say it needs more than one pair of hands, and they can pay him for it. He’d love it, too, the intricacies, the high profile, the moral battle.

She just doesn’t know if he’d pick up the phone if she called.

The flight is miserable; she hates the quinjet on a good day, and commercial airlines are so much worse. The recycled air stinks of humanity, the pressure makes her ears hurt, she can’t hear the way she normally does, which puts her on edge, and the hum of the engines means that everything has a slight vibration to it that makes her skin itch. She distracts herself by making a list of the things she has to do for the case. They have a summer intern starting next week; she can take a lot of the research. Jen was saying she’d love to help out more, so maybe she could come in on a part-time basis to keep the Storefront’s work going while Mattie works on Steve’s case.

When the flight lands, she calls Sharon.

“Oh, boy,” Sharon says, and Mattie’s stomach drops out.

“What happened?” she says.

“They’re gone. All three of them.”

And all Mattie can do is run her hand over her face. _Steve, what the hell are you doing?_


	3. Berlin

They come for her at the hotel. She’s just finished her room service dinner, and is about to take a shower, when she hears two men in the hall: both American, speaking English. They knock, pound, really, on her door until she opens it.

“Matilda Murdock?” one says.

“Yes?”

“We’re from the Counter-Terrorism Task Force. You need to come with us.”

They’re not lying, and it’s useless to bother asking for identification she can’t see, but the lawyer in her refuses to be hauled around without explanation.

“May I ask why?”

“It’s regarding Steve Rogers.”

She hadn’t bothered to change into her black dress (she hadn’t packed a suit for the trip to London) since she had no clients on hand to meet with, so she’s still in the jeans and t-shirt she wore on the flight. Hardly what she’d call presentable, but she doesn’t think they’ll be inclined to let her change.

“I’ll get my coat.”

She grabs her carry-on bag, too, which has her laptop and her phone; if she has the chance to do anything about the case, she’ll take it. They hustle her into a car waiting in front of the hotel, one sitting in the front passenger seat, the other sitting next to her in the back. None of them are armed. _I suppose if you’re sent to pick up a blind woman, you’re not expecting trouble._ She smirks to herself, and doesn’t say anything.

They lead her into a huge building with high-level security. Her bag is thoroughly scanned and she’s patted down before they let her in. They take her upstairs, through offices with glass walls, until she’s seated in a conference room that’s filled with a familiar scent.

Steve was here, only a few hours ago. He hadn’t showered, probably not since before the fight in Bucharest, so the smell of him lingers on the chair he was sitting on. She sits on the same one.

A man, short and tense, comes into the room.

“Matilda Murdock?” he says, and she recognizes the voice of Everett Ross.

“Mr Ross,” she says, not bothering to stand up or offer her hand. “Mind telling me why I’ve been dragged here?”

“I think you can guess. Your…boyfriend and his friends escaped custody a few hours ago.”

_So that’s the tack you’re taking. Making me defensive about my relationship._

“You know I couldn’t have had anything to do with that, since I was on a plane from London,” she says evenly.

“Oh, I’m sure you didn’t have anything to do with the escape.” He lets the statement hang, and she cocks her head. “His current whereabouts, however…”

“I haven’t had any contact with my _clients_ since we spoke on the phone this morning. I believe you were in the room for that.”

“Did Rogers tell you what he was planning?”

“If he had, I would be obliged to notify the proper authorities.”

“Does Rogers have any contacts in Germany?”

“The last time he was in Germany was when he was in Stuttgart capturing Loki. Before that, it was during World War Two. Exactly when would he have made these contacts?”

“Just answer the question, Ms Murdock.”

“That would be privileged information.”

“I can have you arrested for obstruction.” She can feel his body temperature rising; he’s getting angry.

“Go ahead.” She sits back in her chair, smirking. “But you’d better have probable cause and a warrant signed by a judge.”

“I don’t think you quite understand how this works -“

“I understand that I am an American citizen, as are all three of my clients, and that unless martial law was declared while I was on the plane, there is still such a thing as due process.”

Ross tosses a few pages onto the table.

“Do you recognize these items?” he asks.

“Paper,” she says icily. She brushes her fingertips over the top one It’s glossy, printed heavily with ink. A photograph, she guesses. “No braille, so you’ll have to enlighten me.”

Ross sighs. “A backpack, belonging to Barnes. The contents of which include several notebooks, a kevlar vest, and weapons of varying usage.”

“I can honestly say I don’t recognize anything that you’ve described.”

“What is the significance of the notebooks?”

“I have no idea. You wouldn’t let me speak to my client, and if he told me, that would fall under client privilege.”

They go around like this for what seems like hours; Mattie gives him nothing, and points out every violation of due process she hears. She doesn’t threaten to leave, mostly because if they’re focussed on her, that buys Steve more time.

The door opens, and an older man steps into the room.

“Everett, give us the room,” the newcomer says.

“Yes, sir,” Ross says, leaving in a huff.

“Ms Murdock, I’m Thaddeus Ross,” the older man says, to Mattie’s surprise. She knows who the Secretary of State is. He holds out his hand. Mattie doesn’t move.

“Mr Secretary. Any relation to the other Mr Ross?”

“Not that we’re aware of.” He sits down opposite her. “Your boyfriend has created quite the situation here,” he says.

“My _client_ -“

“Ms Murdock, let’s be honest. The only reason you’re representing Rogers and the rest is because of your relationship with him.”

“I wouldn’t say it’s the only reason.”

“It’s the only one that matters.” He sighs. “You know, I have a daughter. She’s a little older than you, but about, oh, fifteen years ago, she would have been about your age. She’s a biologist, brilliant, much smarter than her old man. Back then, she was in love with a scientist who worked in the same lab as she did. A nice guy, the kind you’d be happy to see your daughter with. I believe you’ve met him. Bruce Banner.”

“Yes, I have,” she says neutrally. “As you say, he’s a nice guy.”

“Did he ever tell you about the accident that created the Hulk?”

“No.”

“I’m sure he doesn’t like to talk about it. But that accident left my daughter in a coma. Five weeks. And Banner disappeared. She waited for him, insisted that he was coming back, that whatever had happened, they could face it together. I’m sure you see where this is going.”

“Don’t really see much of anything.”

Ross pauses uncomfortably. _Good_. 

“She only saw him again once. Eight years ago, he turned up at the university where she works. He transformed into the Hulk, and a lot of people were injured, and he abducted my daughter, taking her to New York. She wound up in the middle of his rampage in Harlem, was nearly killed there. And Banner flees, only to show up with the Avengers a few years later. On a personal note, while he was living with the Avengers, he never once tried to contact my daughter.”

“Maybe he felt she’d moved on.”

“My point is, Ms Murdock, that these people, these…super-humans, they leave a trail of destruction in their wake. I can tell you about the death toll in Lagos, the number of agents who were injured in your boyfriend’s escape, but, really, what should concern you is how much Steve Rogers is going to hurt you. He won’t mean it, he may even try to stop it, but it’s inevitable for people like you, just like it was for my daughter.”

Mattie leans back and crosses her legs.

“So, what, this is you trying to appeal to my insecurities?” she snaps. “You think that if you imply that Steve’s going to abandon me that I’ll be more inclined to help you hunt him down?” She puts her elbows on the table. “You think that I’m a stupid little girl with a crush on Captain America. But the truth of the matter is that I’m representing him because I agree with him. The Accords will make the world more vulnerable, and all they’ll accomplish will be turning super-humans against one another. And frankly, I don’t trust any council that would be appointed to oversee the Avengers, because I don’t trust _you_ , Mr Secretary. You’re more dangerous than any Avenger.”

“Is that so?”

“Where’s Emil Blonsky now?”

She hears Ross’ heartrate spike.

“I don’t know who you’re talking about,” he lies.

“You’re going to have to do better than that, Mr Secretary, if you want a career in politics. Natasha Romanoff leaked SHIELD’s files, and that included reports on Bruce Banner’s - what did you call it? - _rampage_ in Harlem. Now, I’m sure you have a file on me somewhere, so I’m sure you know that I was at Columbia when that happened. It’s not that far from Harlem. I remember being terrified, because none of us had ever experienced anything like that. _Two_ monsters, tearing Harlem apart. Thing is, Mr Secretary, I also remember which one of them was there first. And which one arrived to stop him. And I’m sure you do, too. You were there, weren’t you? Blonsky was one of yours.”

“You don’t know -” he tries to interrupt.

“So why would I trust a man who can’t even control his own…abomination…with the kind of power the Avengers have? Why should anyone trust you when you have shown such disastrous judgment with regards to super-humans?”

“OK, I think that’s enough,” interrupts a new voice, and Mattie had been so intent on her diatribe that she hadn’t noticed Tony Stark at the door. Tony crosses the room and puts his hand on her arm. “Let’s go, Jezebel.”

“Stark,” Ross says warningly.

“She’s been here all night, we can at least give the lady a cup of coffee.” Tony pulls Mattie to her feet and hustles her out the door. He leads her to a lounge area, where Natasha is waiting.

“Great, so I get the Ross double-team and now the Avengers?” Mattie snaps.

“Hey, I was trying to stop you from digging yourself into that hole with Ross,” Tony says angrily. “What the hell were you thinking, saying all that to him?”

Mattie’s tired and angry, so she tells the truth. “I was thinking that someone needed to say it to his face.”

“You think that’s going to help your boyfriend?”

“I think Ross has already made up his mind what he’s going to do, and nothing I say is going to change that. And since when do you care what happens to him?”

“I care,” Natasha says. “And you have to know that making Ross angry will just make things worse.”

“For who? For you?”

“For all of us,” Tony says.

“ _Us_?” Mattie barely keeps herself from exploding. “ _You_ drew the battle lines, Tony, you knew what the Accords would do to the Avengers.”

“I’m _trying_ to keep the Avengers together -“

“And look how well you’ve succeeded! Steve and Sam are in the wind -“

“They made the choice to violate the terms of the Accords -“

“And what exactly was Ross planning on doing with them when he had them in custody?”

Tony hesitates. “Prison. Probably. Only if they still refused to sign -“ Mattie scoffs. “There have to be consequences to our actions, we have to be seen to take responsibility -“

“Consequences?” she repeats, low and dangerous. “Don’t you dare talk to me about _consequences_.”

“Mattie…” Natasha starts.

“No. Do you even remember where I live, Tony?”

“Yeah, the name kind of sums it up,” he says. “The Devil of Hell’s Kitchen.”

“I grew up there. It was a shithole when I was a kid, but it was getting better. Until one of you dropped an alien leviathan on it during the Battle of New York. And like that -“ she snaps her fingers, “all the crime, the corruption, we’re right back where we started. And the reconstruction money comes pouring in, and men like Wilson fucking Fisk get rich, and four years later, the neighborhood’s still bleeding. Until someone like me has to step up and do something about it. You think I don’t know the consequences what you do? I’m one of them.”

They’re standing toe to toe, and there’s a silence between them, dangerous and electric.

“Well,” Tony says, “guess you two deserve each other.”

“Go fuck yourself, Tony.”

“Hey,” Natasha says, pulling Mattie back from her standoff with Tony. “This isn’t helping. You should go back to your hotel, get some sleep.”

“Am I free to go, Mr Stark?” Mattie grits out.

“Sure. But if you show up wearing horns, there’s nothing I can do to help you.”

“Wouldn’t expect you to try.”

Natasha tugs Mattie out of the room. “I’ll find an agent to take you back to your hotel,” she says.

“I can do it,” comes Sharon’s voice from down the hall.

“I wouldn’t want to pull you away -“ Natasha starts.

“It’s no problem, I need to get home and crash anyway.” Sharon gently takes Mattie’s hand and wraps it around her elbow. “I’ve got her.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yeah, we’ll be fine.”

Sharon leads Mattie down the hall and around the corner.

“Sorry about that, I’ve been waiting for them to let you out for _hours_ ,” she says.

“Thanks for the assist.” Mattie pauses, listening for electronics, but can’t hear anything in the vicinity. “You hear anything from him?”

“Yeah. He says that HYDRA’s got something big, he needs to get out of Germany to take care of it. We’re going to have to make a detour on the way out.”

“Where are we going?”

“Basement. Evidence lockup. I need to steal their gear.”

“I can help with that.”

“I don’t really think this is a job for a lawyer.”

Mattie shrugs. “We’ll see.”

The basement is a warren of hallways. Evidence lockup is at the end of a hall, and Sharon’s keycard can get them in, but it will show on the logs, implicating her if there’s an investigation.

“Can any keycard get us in?” Mattie asks.

“Most of them.”

Mattie listens to the activity around them; they’re in an empty hall, but there’s a busier one around a few corners away from the lockup.

“OK, I can get you someone else’s keycard. Just stay on my tail, and once you have it, I’ll head out front.”

“I don’t think -“

“Trust me, I can do this.” Mattie pauses. “Make sure you get all the stuff from Barnes’ backpack. Ross - _Everett_ Ross - seemed to think it was important.”

“Sure.”

Mattie leads the way towards the busier hallway, Sharon staying well behind her. The first agent who crosses Mattie’s path is male and young. _Perfect_.

“Excuse me, miss?” he says. “Do you have clearance to be here?”

“Oh, uh, what?” Mattie says, putting on her best confused-blind-girl face.

“Should you be down here?”

“Oh, uh, is this the way out? I just had a meeting with Secretary Ross, and I was trying to find the exit…” She gives him an embarrassed smile. His keycard is hooked onto his jacket pocket. 

“Main floor is two levels up,” the agent says.

“Oh, my God, I’m so embarrassed, I must have gotten off on the wrong floor! Uh, the elevators…?” She points in the wrong direction, and the guy chuckles.

“No, they’re actually -“ He starts to point, then realizes how stupid that is. “Uh, sorry…” He takes her arm and turns her around, giving her directions. When he brushes against her, she lets her cane get tangled and puts her bag between them and uses her other hand to lift the keycard off of him. Sharon passes them, and Mattie slips her the keycard. “…and around the corner, and, you know, why don’t I just take you there?”

“That’s so nice of you, thank you!” she says, smiling. She slips her hand into the crook of his arm, and, just for appearances, squeezes the muscle of his bicep surreptitiously. He flexes when he feels the pressure.

“I’m Ian, by the way,” he says.

“Mattie.”

He leads her to the elevators, and presses the button for her. When the elevator arrives, he presses the button for the ground floor.

“Now, don’t take any more side trips!” he says cheerfully.

“I won’t. Thanks for all your help!”

The doors close, and she sighs in relief.

As she waits for Sharon outside the front doors of the complex, she can feel the warmth of the day arriving as the sun rises. The air smells of morning dew and spring flowers from the flowerbeds in front of the buildings, and for a moment, she lets herself just soak in the world through her senses.

She hears the car pull up in front of her and Sharon get out and call her name. She strolls over, and Sharon opens the passenger side door for her.

As they drive away, Sharon says, “They’ll have someone watching your hotel, so we’ll have to stop there first, let them see you go in. Go up to your room, close the curtains, and - can you find the service entrance around back?”

“Yeah, I can do that.”

“OK, meet me there.” Sharon drums on the wheel of the car. “I’m impressed, by the way. Did Steve teach you how to do that?”

Mattie smiles. “No. An ex-girlfriend,” she says quietly.

“She a spy?”

“No. She was…complicated.”

“Hmm.” Sharon keeps drumming her fingers. “Nothing ever happened between me and Steve. I thought you should know,” she blurts out. Mattie laughs.

“I know.”

“Yeah? How?”

“Because Steve can’t lie to save his life.” _Especially not to me_. 

Sharon sighs. “Ain’t that the truth.”

Sharon drops Mattie off at the front door of her hotel, and Mattie heads up to her room. She closes the curtains, like Sharon told her to, then changes her clothes and packs her bag, regretting that there isn’t enough time to take a shower. She takes the stairs down the back of the building, and finds the service entrance. Sharon’s waiting, and she takes Mattie’s bag and puts it in the back seat.

“It’s about an hour from here,” she says as they pull out. “If you want, you can grab a nap. I know it’s been a long night.”

“I’ve had longer,” Mattie says. “So what’s this about HYDRA?”

Sharon fills her in on what little Steve could tell her; apparently, there are more Winter Soldiers, and someone, presumably HYDRA, is trying to find them, so they activated Bucky’s sleeper programming. Steve and Sam have managed to get Bucky back after he took down Sharon, Natasha, and Tony at the Centre, and all three are on the run together. Sharon doesn’t know where Steve is headed, but apparently Bucky knows where they are.

As Sharon finishes, Mattie leans her head back and listens to the German pop station on the car radio. _Guess I’m going to fight HYDRA_.

“We’re here,” Sharon says as they turn off the main roads, the sounds of traffic receding. She parks, and walks around the front of the car to open Mattie’s door. Mattie hears Steve’s voice saying her name, and he’s there as Mattie steps out of the car, and he’s kissing her, his heart pounding against her. It’s been two days since he left London, and she clings to him as if it’s been two years instead.

As they break apart, she hears the other car’s door open, and Sam steps out. There’s another person in the car; she can hear his heartbeat and the metallic whirring and clicking that she assumes is his cybernetic arm. _Bucky Barnes. The Winter Soldier_.

“Sam,” she says, and she goes to hug him while Steve thanks Sharon and starts to unload her trunk.

“Hey,” Sam says.

“How are you doing?”

“All things considered? Pretty good.” He’s not lying.

“Hey, Mattie,” Steve says, handing Sam his wingpack. “There’s someone I want you to meet.” He opens the car’s door and folds down the seat, and Bucky Barnes steps out. He’s tall, the same height as Steve, with the same muscled build. She can hear the metal of his left arm shift, and his heart is beating nervously. “Buck, this is Mattie Murdock,” Steve says, his hand on Mattie’s back. “Mattie, Bucky Barnes.”

“Hi,” Bucky says quietly.

Mattie smiles. “I’m really glad to meet you,” she says, holding out her hand. Bucky shakes it.

“You’re Steve’s girl?” he says, and she thinks there might be a grin behind that sentence.

“I’m also your lawyer, by the way. I’m sure they didn’t tell you.”

He shakes his head, then catches himself. “Nah, they didn’t.” He’s got the same accent as Steve, so familiar it almost hurts.

“Uh, Steve, we might have a space issue,” says Sam from the front of the car, where the hood is flipped up. Steve goes to have a look.

“He told me about you,” Bucky says. “Said you were the best thing that’s happened to him since he woke up.”

“Well, he’s got that the wrong way around,” she says with a smile. “I’ve heard a lot about you, too.”

“Yeah,” he says. “Probably none of it good.”

“No, from before. He told me a lot about the shit you guys got up to during the war.” He gives a little chuckle. “And you saved his life in Washington, so I owe you for that.”

“That was…” He trails off. “None of you owe me anything.”

“Hey, Mattie,” calls Sam, “am I going to break anything in your bag if it squashes a little?”

“I can put it on my lap, if it helps,” she says.

“Wait, what?” says Steve.

“It’s not that big, I’ll take it,” she says, holding out her hand.

“No, you’re - you can’t come with us.”

“Of course I am. You need all the help you can get.”

“No, we - you can’t be part of this.”

“Why not?” she says, very, very carefully.

“Because -“ Steve stops and takes her arm, leading her a few steps away from the rest of the group. “Tony knows who you are,” he says quietly.

“So?”

“So if you step out on our side, that’s it for you. That’s your life as Mattie Murdock over. That’s your career, the clinic, everything you have in Hell’s Kitchen, finished. I can’t let you do that.”

_What if, from now on, if we make it, wherever you run, I run with you?_ But that had been a different girl, in love with someone else.

“You know I’d do it for you,” she says.

“That’s why I’m not giving you the choice. Because I wouldn’t forgive myself if you did.” He’s telling the truth.

She puts her hand on his face, and he puts his arms around her waist. _Elektra would have loved for me burn it all down. Steve will never let that happen._

“This is why Catholics shouldn’t date each other,” she says, and he laughs sadly.

“Well, there’s one other thing,” he says. “I’m pretty sure at the end of the day some of us are going to need a lawyer. Fighters we got, but lawyers are in short supply. And I don’t want to risk the best one in New York.”

She smiles, and her stomach is in knots, and he leans his forehead against hers. Over by the cars, Sharon is saying, “Mattie made sure we got it for you,” as she holds out the backpack to Bucky.

“Thank you,” he says, and there’s emotion behind it that he’s trying not to show. He takes the backpack, and Sharon steps back, keeping her distance.

Steve and Mattie turn back to the group.

“Everything cool?” says Sam.

“Yeah,” Mattie says. “I’m going back with Sharon.” She holds out her hand, and Bucky puts the strap of her bag in it. She hoists it onto her shoulder. “Right, boys, I need you to listen to me. If they take you in, the only thing I want coming out of your mouths is ‘I want to talk to my lawyer.’ They’ll try to convince you that you don’t have that right. They’re wrong, and I will be doing everything in my power to get to you.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Bucky says.

“You got it,” says Sam.

“OK, we gotta go,” says Steve. He leans over and kisses her. Bucky and Sam don’t say anything, but she can hear Bucky chuckling under his breath. Steve glances over to them, and she feels him blushing. She has no regrets, not about that.

“Take care of yourselves,” she says, and she walks back to Sharon’s car.

They drive back to the hotel without speaking, Sharon’s German pop playing on the radio. She hugs Mattie when she parks behind the hotel.

“I’ll be in touch,” she says.

Mattie climbs the stairs to her room, and each step is harder than the last. _You ever been tired, Red?_ She’s been awake since yesterday morning, in London. Over twenty-four hours, now.

She doesn’t bother to get undressed, just falls onto the bed, and falls asleep on top of the duvet.

The storm gathers for two days. She waits for news, and tries to get as much work done as she can. She has Becky research the international law precedents, and hopes that she’ll be prepared for whatever Ross tries to throw at Steve’s team. She knows Ross is watching her (she figured out which office in the building opposite the hotel the surveillance team is working out of), so she stays in the hotel for the most part, with the exception of a trip out to an antique store she found online. The owner doesn’t speak English, but they manage to work things out. She’s discreetly followed by the surveillance team, and when she returns to the hotel, she hears them grumbling about a waste of time.

“Fighters we got,” he’d said. Sam and Bucky, sure, but who else? Rhodey, Vision, and Natasha are on Tony’s side, which leaves Wanda out of the active Avengers. And Clint, if one counts the inactive Avengers. She has no idea which side either of them will decide to support, or if they’ll join the fight at all.

There’s no question in her mind that Steve is outclassed when it comes to firepower, unless he has Wanda on his side, and even then, she’s still new to combat.

The tension is building under her skin, and she has no way to relieve it; she doesn’t know Berlin well enough to go parkouring, and she’s not about to be a vigilante in a foreign country with the Avengers’ mess hanging over her head. She can’t even train, since the gym in the hotel is open to anyone, and she’s trying to stay inconspicuous. The best she can do is meditate, but once she stops, it all comes flooding back, and she’s right back where she started.

The evening of the second day, she’s working late, on a phone call to New York. She hangs up, and pulls her hair out of the clip she was wearing, running her fingers through her hair to try to relieve the tension in her scalp.

And she hears it. The soft sound of a body landing on the roof, and that slow, steady heartbeat.

And Steve’s voice. “Uh, Mattie, I’m here, but I don’t know what room you’re in, so you’re going to have to help me out.”

And she smiles.

She climbs up the stairs to the roof, and he’s waiting there, holding Bucky’s backpack.

“Hey,” she says. “Everything OK?”

“Uh, yeah, it’s fine, we’re…I came to ask you a favor.” He’s lying. She doesn’t call him on it, not yet.

“Sure.”

“Bucky asked if you could look after this for him. It’s going to be messy tomorrow, and he’s not going to be able to carry it with him.” He holds out the backpack to her, and she takes it.

“Of course.”

“He says the pack’s not important, just the notebooks.”

“I’ll take care of them.”

He hesitates, shifting his weight, and she’s reminded of how awkward he’d been, all those years ago in Fogwell’s.

“He also said I’m an idiot, and that I should be here with you,” he says, blushing. This time, he’s telling the truth.

“He sounds like a smart guy.”

“Yeah, seventy years of HYDRA brainwashing, and he’s still better with women than I am.”

“Does he still call them dames? Because you might want to warn him that that’s not cool anymore.”

“I’ll mention it,” he says, and he takes her face in his hands and kisses her.

“Come downstairs,” she whispers.

“OK.”

They don’t say anything as they climb down the stairs to her floor. He doesn’t touch her, just follows her, his heart beating fast. Hers is, too.

He reaches for the light switch when she lets them into her room, but she stops him.

“There’s a surveillance team across the street. If they see I’ve got a light on, they’ll know someone’s here with me.”

He nods, and reaches into the bathroom instead. He turns on the light, and pulls the door almost closed.

“They won’t see that, not through the curtains,” he says.

She nods, and puts Bucky’s backpack down next to the luggage rack. She listens to the surveillance team as she takes off her shoes, but they haven’t noticed anything, their idle conversation hasn’t wavered. Steve sits on the bed to take off his shoes. She slips off her glasses and puts them on the desk next to her laptop.

“I love you,” he says quietly.

“I know. I love you, too.” 

And he’s on her, kissing her with a ferocity she normally only feels when he’s sparring. She pushes his jacket off his shoulders and he fumbles out of the sleeves, still kissing her. He unzips her hoodie and pulls it off, and immediately unhooks her bra once it’s gone. He pushes her back onto the bed so that she’s sitting on the end, and he leans over her, laying her back as she tugs his t-shirt over his head. He kisses at her throat, then down over her breasts and her stomach, until he’s kneeling on the floor between her legs and pulling her jeans and underwear down. She tries to sit up to help when her jeans get caught on her heels, but he presses her back and manages to free her. He flicks her socks off quickly, and then his hands are on her thighs, spreading her legs, his hands sliding over her sensitive skin. He kisses the inside of her thigh, works his way up, until his mouth is on her, and his tongue is sliding over her clit.

She doesn’t have very many coherent thoughts, just lets the sensation overwhelm her. Her skin feels _everything_ ; the slickness of his tongue, the subtle scrape of his stubble, the rough texture of his hands, the gentle puff of his breath. She’s moaning, she can’t control it, and her breath is coming in harsh gasps, and she smells saline, and feels tears sliding down from her eyes. When she comes, she’s not sure if it’s with a cry or a sob.

“Mattie?” He climbs up next to her on the bed, and strokes her face. “Are you - what’s wrong?” She reaches over and brushes her fingertips over his face. “Sorry, stupid question.”

“Yeah, a little.”

“We don’t have to - this was a bad idea.” He turns, about to sit up, but she still has her hand on his face.

“No, it’s not. Please.” She slides her hand down, resting it over his heart. “I want you to stay.”

He rolls over, kissing her, and she can taste herself in his mouth. She unbuckles his belt, sliding her hand into his pants and stroking him, feeling the way the blood rushes and pounds in his cock.

“Wait. I - I don’t have any protection,” he says.

“Oh. I do.” She pats his arm, and he climbs off of her, and she goes to her bag, breathing deep to try and control her roiling emotions.

“Of course you do.”

“Weren’t you the one who said being prepared was an important tactical skill?” She finds the condoms, down at the bottom of her bag, and pulls out the strip.

“Didn’t really have time to stop by a drugstore to pick some up. And I don’t know what the German word for ‘condom’ is.” He’s pulling off his pants and moving up the bed, folding the duvet back.

“What, it never came up during the war?” They’re bantering the way they do at home, but the weight of the situation hangs over them, making it hollow. She climbs into bed next to him, and he pulls her against him, sliding his hand over her thigh and ass.

“There wasn’t really time,” he says, and his hand moves up her side until he’s cupping her breast. 

_And we’re running out of time._

He squeezes her breast gently, and runs his thumb over her nipple, making her breath hitch. She slides her hands over his shoulders, pulling him down onto her. She reaches between them and wraps her hand around his cock, stroking him, feeling him get hard, until he pulls away to put on a condom. He presses her back against the pile of hotel pillows, and runs his hands up her legs, spreading them wider, until he guides himself inside her, and she sighs because _this_ is what she’s wanted for two days, for longer, this is what she’s _needed_. He hooks his arms under her knees, pushing them up and moving deeper inside her, and she gasps, feeling the entire length of him.

The tears start coming again as he starts to thrust faster, and he stops.

“No, don’t…don’t stop,” she says, and it comes out broken and pleading, and she tightens her arms around him. “Please don’t stop,” she whispers.

“OK,” he whispers, nodding. “OK,” he murmurs, kissing her. “OK,” he breathes against her ear.

He starts moving again, gently, slowly, and she’s not sure if she’s moaning or crying, and all she can do is hold onto him and try to shut the world out.

She comes first, she always does, and he lets her legs down to wrap around him as he keeps moving inside her. He doesn’t last much longer, shaking and clasping her tight to him as he comes.

She’s still crying as he throws out the condom and pulls the duvet up and over them both. He holds her against his chest, and she tries to get herself under control, but she can’t, so she just clings to him and listens to his heartbeat and feels his hand stroking her hair.

“What can I do?” he says softly. She shakes her head. “Mattie…”

“Just -“ She turns her face up to him. “Stay here with me, OK?” _Don’t leave me alone_.

He kisses her, and brushes her nose with his. “I’m coming back,” he says, and he’s telling the truth. “I promise I’ll always come back.”

_How can you be sure?_

“I know,” she lies.

“We’re going to be OK. We’ve got a good team, there’s a good chance we’ll all make it out.” That’s a lie.

“So, who _are_ my clients?”

“Uh, me, Sam, Bucky, Clint, Wanda, and this guy Scott. Scott Lang.”

“Is he good?”

“He’s the one who kicked Sam’s ass last summer.”

She chuckles; it had been the Avengers’ favorite story to tell when she’d been up at the Mansion.

“I’m glad Wanda’s with you,” she says.

“Me too.”

He takes her hand and laces their fingers together. She wants to tell him that she’s afraid; she’s afraid he’ll get hurt, she’s afraid he’ll hurt someone on Tony’s side, she’s afraid he’ll get arrested…

She can’t tell him, so she kisses him instead. It’s deep and lovely, and it _hurts_. She slides her leg up and over his, rolling them over so that she’s straddling his lap. He brushes his knuckles against her cheek.

“You sure?”

“I’m sure.”

She slides down, and takes his cock in her mouth, feeling him get harder and harder as she swirls her tongue and sucks him hard. When he’s hard as a rock, she lifts her head, and he rolls on the condom, then holds out his hands to her. She climbs up, putting his hands on her hips and letting him guide her, and takes his cock in her hand, sliding onto him and pushing down, letting him fill her. He strokes her thighs as she starts to grind, slowly, enjoying the feeling of him inside her. She leans forward to kiss him, and feels her breasts brush against his chest as his hands trail up her spine. He tangles one hand in her hair, the other cups her ass, and she moves faster, listening to his body respond to her, muscle and breath and heart.

She sits up, and starts to ride him hard, and he puts one hand on her breast, squeezing it, making her moan. She pumps up and down on his cock, and he matches her movements, slamming up into her as she drops down, until she throws her head back and comes, her whole body shaking with the force of it.

He takes her by the waist and rolls them over, pulling her under him, and slides his hand between them to stroke her clit before he starts to thrust into her with such force that she braces her hands against the headboard. She comes again, and that pushes him over the edge too. For a moment, neither of them can move, his cock still inside her, his head dropped onto her shoulder. She pulls her hands down from the headboard and strokes his hair, and he lifts his head to kiss her lazily, as if they have all the time in the world.

He pulls out of her, and throws away the condom, climbing back into bed and kissing her shoulder as he settles down next to her.

“You should get some sleep,” she whispers. He has a big day tomorrow.

But he just shakes his head, and rests it against the pillow. She thinks he’s looking at her, because he brushes a strand of hair out of her face.

“I don’t want to lose a minute of tonight,” he says.

They kiss for a while, just letting lips and tongues move against each other. The air around them is filled with their mingled scents and the smell of sex, heady and intoxicating. His hand brushes over her back, leaving a trail of lit-up nerve endings, and she feels his soft skin against hers, under her fingertips as she moves her hands over him.

He brushes his fingers over her cheek, and she takes his hand and plants a kiss in his palm. One finger traces the shape of her lips, and she kisses the tip before she sucks it into her mouth, licking at the pad. He’s breathing heavily as she sucks on his finger, then he pulls it away and replaces it with his tongue. His hand slides between her legs, and he pushes the wet finger inside her, then a second. She whines a little as his hand works on her, and reaches down to find him half-hard. It doesn’t take much to get him ready, and he rolls on a new condom.

She lies back, inviting him to be on top, but he puts his hands on her hips, and turns her onto her side, stretching out behind her and spooning her. She bends her knee, opening herself up to him, and he enters her from behind with a soft moan. He wraps his arm around her, pressing himself flush against her back, his arm reaching across her chest to hold her breast. His face is tucked into the curve of her neck, and she can feel his breath on her skin. He moves gently inside her; it’s a position that calls for tenderness, not hard fucking. She drinks in his warmth, wrapped around her and inside her, his whispered “I love you” filling up her heart, and lets herself feel safe, just for a moment.

When they’re done, he throws out the condom and spoons her again, intertwining their fingers.

“What time is it?” she whispers.

“I don’t know. The sun’s coming up, though, I can see it getting lighter.”

Her heart sinks.

“You should go,” she says.

He kisses her shoulder. “I know. I know,” he says heavily. She turns in his arms, and he kisses her. Then he’s getting up, getting dressed. She pulls the duvet up over her chest, suddenly cold. When he’s dressed, he sits down on the bed next to her. “Mattie…”

“Don’t say goodbye,” she says, reaching out and cupping his face with her hand. “Please don’t do that to me.”

“OK.” He kisses her. “I’ll see you on the other side.”

“See you on the other side.”

He lets himself out, and she listens to him as he goes down the hall and up the stairs and onto the roof. She follows his heartbeat until he’s too far away to hear, then cocks an ear to the surveillance team across the street, but they haven’t noticed a thing all night.

She rolls over, pressing her face into the pillow, and breathes in the scent of him, feeling the warmth he left on the sheets, and tries not to cry.

She can’t sleep, not knowing what’s coming, so after she’s lain there for about an hour, she gets up and showers, washing the smell of sex and Steve Rogers off her skin. She pulls on her hoodie and jeans, then lets curiosity get the better of her, and opens Bucky’s backpack.

He’s taken the kevlar vest and the weapons; all that’s left are a dozen or so notebooks. She pulls out the one on top, feels the cover. It’s worn and bent, as if it’s been handled a lot, and the pages are full of writing. She brushes her fingertips over the indentations, but doesn’t recognize most of the symbols. Some of them feel like letters, and she realizes that it’s written in Cyrillic, probably Russian. She flips through the pages. There’s a printed picture taped to one page, and Bucky’s written something in Russian beneath the picture. And beneath that, “Natalia. I knew you.”

Mattie pulls out more of the notebooks. One has a list of dates, matched with descriptions. “August 28, 1974. Young man, Chinese. November 1, 1963. Scientist, woman.”

She finds the one that feels the most worn, probably the first. She opens to the first page. There’s a heading in bold capital letters, the pen pressed so hard into the page she’s sure anyone could feel it. “FACTS,” it says. Underneath, a list. “My name is James Buchanan Barnes. I was born in 1917 in Brooklyn, New York. I was a Sergeant in the US Army. I fought in a war…” It goes on, until, at the bottom, scrawled and underlined: “This I know. They cannot change this.”

Later pages are different; some seem like stream of consciousness, fragments pouring out onto the page. Some are lists of facts, all of them ending with “This I know. They cannot change this.” Some are paragraphs that start with “I remember,” describing images or moments, caught out of context. She finds song lyrics, some of which she recognizes, most of them marked with margin notes like “A bar in Budapest,” or “I danced with Lorraine.”

And there are more pictures taped in, with lists of what he remembers about the people in them, “I knew you” written beneath the pictures. There’s a page for Steve, early in the first book, which starts by listing facts that anyone could find on Wikipedia, and gradually, over several pages, becoming more and more personal until Bucky describes a memory of finding Steve, still small and skinny, fighting in an alley against men twice his size. “I could do this all day,” Bucky has written, multiple times, as if he was trying to sear it into his memory.

There’s knock on Mattie’s door, and a cheerful call of “ _Zimmer-service_!” Right. Breakfast. Mattie sweeps the notebooks off the desk and into the backpack, and tucks it into the closet as she goes to the door. The server gives her a bright “ _Guten morgen_!” and puts the tray down on the desk next to Mattie’s laptop.

“ _Danke_ ,” Mattie says, which is pretty much the extent of her German. She tips the woman (Euro bills are so much easier to distinguish than American ones), and waits until she hears her knock on the next door before she pulls the backpack out again.

She’s holding two years of Bucky’s recovery in her hands. He’s spent two years filling these notebooks, trying to grasp onto his memories, to find his humanity again. And he trusted her with it.

She can’t be sure her room won’t be searched; they didn’t when they brought her in for questioning, but that was probably because they knew she couldn’t have had any contact with Steve. Now that he’s been on the run for days, they might search it for…well, exactly what she’s holding.

She ponders how to hide the notebooks as she eats breakfast. She considers calling down to reception to ask about secure storage, but she’s not sure they wouldn’t open it if someone flashed a badge at them. And then she hits on it.

She stuffs her billy clubs into the backpack, and then heads down to the hotel gym. There’s a pool, and change rooms with lockers, keys left in the locks when not in use. She chooses one lower down, where people won’t look first, and brushes her fingertip over the number glued to the door, memorizing it. She stuffs the backpack in, locking it and taking the key with her; she’ll keep it on her as long as she’s here.

Sharon texts her around noon. “It’s started,” her phone reads out to her. “Leipzig airport.” Mattie turns on BBC radio, and they’re reporting a clash between Tony’s Avengers and Steve’s team. No details. No-one can get close enough to see what’s happening. And then -

“We can see - who is that? Iron Man, Falcon, and War Machine are - the only word to describe is dogfighting, and -“ The reporter screams, and Mattie’s heart stops. _Sam._ “War Machine has been hit. He’s falling. We can’t see if he landed safely, but Iron Man and Falcon were flying to intercept him.”

Rhodey. He’d never liked her, never approved of Daredevil, but she’d always respected him; he’s the kind of man who commands respect. And if he dies, Tony and Steve will never forgive each other. Or themselves.

“It appears that the battle is over,” the reporter is saying. “One aircraft was seen departing, no word on who may have been on board. No official word on the identities of the combatants, or whether there have been any casualties.”

If the aircraft made it out, that probably means at least some of Steve’s team is gone, off to find HYDRA’s Winter Soldiers.

That’s not her concern, now. Her concern is anyone left behind.

She changes into her black dress and waits for an hour for Sharon to call, to hear who they’ve arrested. She can’t go barging into the Joint Counter-Terrorism Centre without at least knowing who she’s representing (and giving Everett Ross a multiple choice list probably wouldn’t be the best idea). And then they’re banging on her door, the same agents as before, and she’s hustled into a car.

They leave her in a conference room (a different one, this one smaller, with no windows), and she stretches out her senses, trying to find the people she needs to help. Secretary Ross is upstairs, growling something about the missing Wakandan King. Two floors beneath her, she hears Clint Barton and Everett Ross; Clint tells Ross to fuck off, he wants to talk to his lawyer. _That’s my boy_. On the same floor, Wanda Maximoff’s heart is beating fast; she’s panicking, and there’s a small electronic sound that Mattie doesn’t like at all. She hears Sam ask the agent interrogating him how Rhodey is doing. And a fourth person, a man, humming to himself, as if the whole experience is par for the course. _That must be Ant-Man. Hi-I’m-Scott._

Everett Ross storms out of Clint’s cell, and tells an agent to move them all out. Another agent tells him that they’ve brought in the girlfriend. The blind lawyer. Ross sighs.

“God, that bitch too?” he says.

_Charming._

She hears him take the elevator up, and come down the hall to her as Clint, Sam, Wanda, and Scott are taken out of their cells and led away.

“Ms Murdock, I’m sure you remember me,” he says, closing the door.

“Everett Ross,” she says. “Can I assume that you have some of Steve’s supporters in custody?”

“I’m not at liberty to say.”

“They’re entitled to representation.”

“Not under the Sokovia Accords.”

If he’d slapped her, she wouldn’t have been more stunned.

“That’s unconstitutional,” she says.

“That’s reality, Ms Murdock. Your boyfriend’s pals, they’re being sent where they can’t do any more damage. Same goes for him and the Winter Soldier when we find them.” _They don’t have Steve or Bucky._

“I’m sorry, did you just flat-out tell me you’re planning on violating _Captain America’s_ constitutional rights? Are you even listening to yourself?” 

“The only question for you, Ms Murdock, is whether you’d care to join them.” _Does he know? Did Tony tell him?_ “I’m fairly certain that aiding and abetting is still illegal. I can get you that warrant you wanted. Signed by a judge.”

_Frank Castle shot me in the head. I fought Nobu when he came back from the dead. I’ve had Wilson Fisk’s hands around my throat. Do you really think you can frighten me?_

“You’ll find you need probable cause,” she says evenly. “Who do you have in custody?”

“That’s not your concern. You expect me to believe that you’ve spent two days in Berlin while your boyfriend’s been on the run, and have had no contact with him whatsoever?”

“You can believe whatever you want. You have no evidence. I’d like to speak with Sam Wilson.”

“Why him?”

“Because I know he was on the run with Steve and Bucky, but you didn’t mention him escaping, so I assume you’ve arrested him.”

She can hear a helicopter taking off, carrying Steve’s friends with it. _Fucking dystopian shit._

“And where have Rogers and Barnes gone, Ms Murdock?”

“How should I know?”

“What was their plan?”

“I don’t know.”

And around and around they go. Ross tries to intimidate her, threaten her, but she can’t give up information she doesn’t have. He gives up relatively quickly, in comparison to the last time they’d sat across from one another, and she realizes that he’d never thought she’d known anything in the first place. He opens the door.

“My clients are still entitled to representation,” she says.

“Your clients aren’t here. My advice? Go back to New York and pretend you never met any of them.”

He leaves her in the conference room, then an agent comes and leads her to a car, and they drive her back to her hotel. When she gets off the elevator, she hears the familiar heartbeat in her hotel room. Nearly entirely mechanized, with the most advanced pacemaker known to man. She unlocks her door.

“Hello, Tony,” she says.

“Where is he?” Tony says without preamble.

“How should I know, and why would I tell you if I did?”

“Because people have gotten hurt, and this needs to stop.”

She pauses. “How’s Rhodey?”

“Fine.” Tony’s voice is strained, trying to sound flippant, and failing. “Possibly partially paralyzed, but they’re moving him Stateside. I’m putting a call in to Helen Cho. It’ll be…” He stops. 

“I don’t know where he is, Tony.”

“But you know what he’s doing.” She stays silent. “Of course you do. Ross try to get it out of you?”

“Everett or Thaddeus?”

“Either. Both. Whatever.” He steps in close, lowers his voice. “I think by now you’ve figured out that I haven’t told them about you. I won’t. I’m not them. C’mon, Hornhead, you _know_ me.”

And she freezes, because Tony has never called her that before. Only one person ever has.

“Where’d you hear that?” she says.

“What?”

“‘Hornhead.’ Where’d you hear it?”

“Friend of yours. Tiny, chatty, little on the excitable side?”

_Peter._

“What did you do to him?” she snaps, low and dangerous, because she’ll take him down if he’s hurt Peter, Accords be damned.

“Nothing. He’s fine, he’s on a jet home.”

“You brought Peter _here_?” She’s thought Tony capable of a lot, but this is a new low. “What the hell, Tony?”

He just shrugs. 

“Needed an extra hand, and since I assumed _you’d_ be over on Team Star-Spangled Man, I figured I needed a New York vigilante of my own,” he says.

“You brought him here to fight Steve?!”

“Not _Steve_ , just some of the others.”

“You put a _fifteen-year-old_ up against some of the most powerful fighters in the world?”

“Don’t get all self-righteous, you’ve been swinging around New York with him for months.”

“I’ve been trying to stop him from getting himself killed, not dragging him into a war zone!”

“Newsflash, he can handle himself.”

_Only because I taught him how to throw a punch._ And with that thought, she throws one of her own, hitting Tony square in the jaw. It doesn’t break, but it’ll hurt for a while. He retaliates, grabbing her arm as it comes in for another strike, and for a moment, they’re pitting their strength against each other, unstoppable force against immovable object. The moment ends, and they break apart. She flexes her hand, relishing the ache. It’s strangely calming.

“You think that’s going to solve anything?” he says.

“No, but it makes me feel better.” She picks up the little cloth bag from the desk, the one she’d got at the antique store, and tosses it to him. “It’s for you. I was going to send it to you, but might as well give it to you in person. For Sam, and the others.”

He opens it and pulls out the silver coin.

“What is this?”

“Make sure Ross gives you the other twenty-nine,” she says, coldly and deliberately. “Now get out of my room.”

Tony strides past her to the door, but stops before he opens it.

“You know, they want your head,” he says. “And they’d love it if they found out that head came with little devil horns. Don’t do anything stupid.”

“Or I’ll wind up in whatever hole they’re hiding Sam and the others in?”

He hesitates. With his pacemaker, his heart doesn’t tell her anything, but he holds his breath for an infinitesimal moment. Then he leaves, before he says whatever he wanted to say.

For a few minutes, she sits on the bed, her thoughts whirling.

_In the past three days, I’ve told a federal agent, the Secretary of State, and Iron Man to go fuck themselves._ And, unbidden: _Foggy would find that hilarious._

She wishes she could call him to tell him. She wishes they could go out and get drunk and she could rant about unconstitutional Accords and child endangerment and how much she misses Steve.

Instead, she calls Becky and has her book a flight home, next one out. There’s nothing left for her in Berlin.

On the way to the airport, she has the cab stop at a post office, and she has Bucky’s notebooks and her billy clubs couriered to her. She’s not willing to trust that either Ross hasn’t had her flagged for additional screening at customs, and it turns out, she’s right. It takes her hours to get out of JFK when she lands, her bags having been thoroughly searched (practically having the lining slit open).

When she gets home, the apartment just feels empty. Steve’s gym bag is still tucked into the corner of her bedroom; his iPod, the keys to his bike, and his helmet are still sitting on the bench next to the door, where he’d left them before he’d been called away to the Nigeria mission. He still has dirty clothes in the laundry basket. And he’s gone.

And she tries to push away the thought, but can’t keep it down: _He might not be coming back._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oof, this one was a beast...
> 
> The contents of Bucky's backpack are inspired by an interview given by Sebastian Stan. I just thought it was such a beautiful image, Bucky literally carrying his fragmented history with him.
> 
> The jab with the silver coin is based on a similar line from the Civil War comic. Technically, it was Danny Rand who made it, but he was pretending to be Matt at the time...


	4. New York, Again

Mattie waits for news. She waits for news that Steve and Bucky have been arrested, that they’ve been killed, that there are Winter Soldiers loose in Europe, that _anything_ has happened. All she gets is a news report (buried in the African news section of the _Bulletin_ ’s website) that Helmut Zemo has been charged with the Vienna bombing, and will be extradited to Wakanda.

The courier package arrives the day after she lands in New York. She stashes Bucky’s notebooks in the trunk under her father’s boxing gear.

She tries to make contact with Sam and the others; it takes days for the Task Force to even admit that they have them in custody. No-one will tell her where they are, or whether they will even be tried in a court of law.

The whole situation makes her want to punch something, so she goes out that night, aiming for a new chapter from the Mexican cartel that she knows still operates out of the Meatpacking District. Word on the street is that there’s a shipment being handed off tonight.

She recognizes Frank Castle’s heartbeat when she’s a block away, and she rolls to her feet on the rooftop where he’s made his nest.

“Hey, Red,” he says genially.

“Hey, Frank,” she says, and she grabs his sniper rifle, unloading smoothly (she’s learned a lot about guns, spending time with Frank).

“Aw, Jesus, Red, really?”

“We’ve been over this.”

He sits back. “You’re in a pissy mood. That time of the month?”

“Fuck you. I’m going in, try not to shoot me.”

“They’re not all there yet,” he says, before she can swing across to the cartel’s building. “The goods are there, but not the buyers.” He shrugs. “Pull up some roof, it might be a while.”

She sits on the ledge, dangling one leg over the drop.

“Heard what happened in Germany,” Frank says noncommittally, after they’ve sat in silence. “With the boyfriend.”

“Whole world heard.”

“You weren’t around. Worried the flag-waver might’ve got you caught up in it.”

_Worried? You’re going soft on me, Frank._

“I was,” she says instead. “But not like…” She waves a hand over her horns. “Not like this.”

“Right. Mattie Murdock, Attorney at Law.” He always sounds vaguely mocking when he uses her real name.

“Will you keep your fucking voice down?” She knows there’s no-one around who can hear them, but it’s the principle of the thing.

“Relax, Red. So what happened?”

“People got hurt. Someone decided to throw out the US Constitution. And my boyfriend’s the most wanted man in America.”

There’s a pause, and she thinks Frank’s looking at her. “He OK?”

“I don’t know.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah.”

“So who’s after him? Stark?”

“He was, but I heard he’s back Stateside now.” She pauses. “Guess it’s whoever our illustrious Secretary of State can find to hunt down a superpowered vigilante.” They share a laugh about that.

“He’d probably shit his pants if he went up against _us_.”

She chuckles. “Frank, there are very few people who wouldn’t shit their pants going up against you.”

“That’s sweet, Red.”

She cocks her head.

“Car pulling up,” she says.

“Buyers?”

She listens, but the people below are speaking a language she doesn’t recognize. Something Slavic. But the cartel members are speaking in Spanish, and they recognize the car.

“Yep,” she says. “They’re heading in.” She stands up on the edge. “You coming?”

“Sure.” He wraps an arm around her waist, holding her against him.

“You kill anyone, I’ll punch you in the dick,” she says, and she shoots the grappler. 

They swing together, both holding the line, and smash through the window into the cartel’s meeting. They land on top of a table holding a large quantity of…smells like cocaine…and then they’re up and swinging. Frank’s firing his handguns, making her ears ring, and she throws a club, letting it ricochet off the ceiling to knock out one of his targets before he can get a headshot in. She jumps and grabs the shoulders of one of the buyers, swinging herself up and around him, bringing him down with a knee to the face, and rolls to where the club landed, scooping it up and hitting someone in the jaw with the upswing. Two of the cartel members rush her, and the devil smiles.

They hit the ground like sacks of meat.

When it’s all over, there are bodies all over the floor, and she listens. Everyone has a heartbeat, nobody’s bleeding out. She doesn’t have to punch Frank in the dick, after all.

Frank helps her tie up everyone in the room, complaining the whole time, and she pulls a phone out of one of their pockets. She tosses it to Frank.

“Call the 17th. Ask for Mike Sousa.”

“Fuck’s sake, Red,” he grumbles under his breath, but he does it anyway. As soon as the call is over, he drops the phone and takes off with a “Take care of yourself.”

She waits on the roof of the building until she hears the car pull up, and Mike Sousa get out with another cop. She shoots the grappler, and swings down, right over the car, and hears Mike say, “Holy shit, is that her?” before she leaves him behind.

But even taking down a minor chapter of a drug cartel can’t stop the nightmares. She dreams of Wilson Fisk, holding her by the throat as Sharon Carter fires a gun into Steve’s gut. She’s tearing at Fisk’s face, trying to fight her way past him to Steve, and she can’t breathe, and she can hear Steve’s heartbeat slowing, until a metal arm wraps around her from behind and drags her back, and Bucky Barnes (or is it Frank Castle?) whispers in her ear, “Stay down, Red.”

In between her meetings, she asks Karen to meet her for lunch. Over deli sandwiches, she tells Karen about Sam and the others being black-bagged after Berlin.

“…and right now,” she finishes, “I think the only thing that can scare them is the word getting out.”

“You don’t have any evidence?” Karen says.

“They admitted they had them in custody, that’s as far as I’ve gotten. And anything that Ross said to me in Berlin isn’t on record.”

Karen sighs and pokes at her coleslaw. “You know I can’t print this.”

“Karen, please -“

“I’m not saying this isn’t a story, but Ellison won’t let me print without more. Corroboration, more sources. We can’t print an anti-Accords story with just Captain America’s girlfriend as a source.” It’s what Mattie had expected, but she’s disappointed anyway. “Is there anyone in the Task Force who might talk to me? Anyone who might have seen something in Berlin?”

“There’s - an agent, she’s a friend of Steve’s. But she’d be risking her career and possibly arrest if she talked to you.”

“If you put me in contact, I can make sure her name never gets connected to it.”

Mattie nods, and pulls out her phone. She gives Karen Sharon’s phone number.

“OK, I’m going to look into this. But it’s going to take time,” Karen says.

“I know,” says Mattie quietly. “Meanwhile, my friends are rotting in Gitmo, or wherever.”

Karen reaches across and puts a hand on her arm.

“I’ll work as fast as I can.” She chafes Mattie’s arm, then withdraws her hand. “You know, it’s good to see you so…passionate.”

Mattie snorts. “There’s one word for it.”

“No, I mean it. Even with everything going on…you look good. Like you used to.” Mattie’s not sure how to respond to that. “You know, there _is_ a story you can give us that Ellison _will_ print. About you and Steve.”

“I’m not giving an interview about my relationship with Steve.”

“It could help him, Mattie. Remind people why they love him, just like you do.”

“I can’t, I’m sorry, Karen.” There’s an awkward silence, and Mattie’s the one to break it. “How’s Foggy?” she asks.

“Good. He’s got his hands full with Jessica -“

“What’s going on with Jessica?”

“She’s under investigation, that’s all he can really say.”

Mattie wonders if Jessica’s legal troubles might be related, even tangentially, to the current situation with the Avengers.

“Well, tell him -“

“Nope, I’m not telling him anything,” interrupts Karen. “I’ll tell you what I told him: I’m not ferrying messages between the two of you. You want to say something, you have to say it to each other.”

“That’s probably good advice,” Mattie concedes.

“Yeah. It is.”

_If Foggy ever wants to talk to me again._

She goes out again that night, this time following the reports to where Peter is fighting a guy on…are those _stilts_? She hears hydraulics and mechanized joints, like a primitive version of Bucky Barnes’ arm, and Peter is trying to tangle them in his webs, but the stilts are strong enough and flexible enough that it’s not working. Peter’s suit sounds different, it moves differently than before, and she can hear something sliding and interlocking around his face.

She swings up to the stilt-man’s level and sails through the air, landing astride his shoulder. She punches down onto his face, and he manages to throw her off, but the brief fight spins him around, and the distraction lets Peter shoot a web across the guy’s path.

“Hey, buddy!” he calls as the guy hits the webline. He pulls. “Timber!”

The guy topples over, the hydraulic stilts shrinking, so when he hits the ground, it’s not the devastating impact it might have been. Mattie is perched on the flagpole that she’d grabbed in her fall, and swings herself around, bouncing off the side of the building until she reaches the ground. The stilt-man is struggling to his feet, and Mattie leaps into a spinning kick, and he smacks into the pavement, unconscious.

“Thanks, Hornhead!” Peter says, stuck upside down to the side of the building.

“We need to talk,” she says. She can hear sirens approaching, so they don’t need to worry about the stilt-man getting away. She uses the grappler to swing up to the roof, then leads Peter in a parkour chase across several blocks’ worth of rooftops, until she’s sure they won’t be overheard.

“New suit,” she says.

“Yeah, Mr Stark gave it to me!” Peter says. “I mean, it took a little getting used to, but -“

“I heard what happened in Germany,” she interrupts, since waiting for Peter to take a breath is never a wise decision.

“Oh, man, it was awesome! There was this guy, he could grow to, like three stories high, and I met Captain America and -“

“And you fought him.”

“Yeah, but he’s a cool guy. You should have been there! Honestly, I thought Mr Stark would have grabbed you too.”

There are times when Mattie wonders if Peter is entirely guileless. He knows her first name, and he’s seen her face, but he doesn’t seem to have bothered trying to find out who she really is ( _she_ , on the other hand, knows that his name is Peter Parker, he’s a sophomore at Midtown High School, and has won several science awards).

“I’m not exactly Stark’s biggest fan at the moment,” she says. “What’d he say to you, to get you to go?”

“Oh, he just said he needed my help. I mean, when _Iron Man_ shows up and says he needs your help, you gotta do it, right?”

“You didn’t stop to think about whether he was in the right or not?” She’s trying not to sound angry, and it comes out more exasperated than anything else.

“You mean about the Accords?” Peter shifts uncomfortably. “I mean, I heard the news about what happened in Nigeria. And I remember when the Incident happened, I mean I was just a kid -“ _You’re still just a kid._ “- but it seems to me that it’s a good thing to make sure everyone agrees about what the Avengers are doing, doesn’t it? I mean, you shouldn’t have that much power, and not be responsible to somebody.”

She’s heard him say that before, or variants on it. It seems to be his guiding principle, _responsibility_. 

“OK,” she says. “But who are we responsible to?”

“The law,” he says, and, yes, he definitely doesn’t know what she does for a living. “And the people of New York.”

She sits down on the edge of the roof.

“So what makes the Avengers any different from us?” _So now I’m debating with a fifteen-year-old._

“If we screw up, if someone gets hurt, the NYPD have a right to arrest us. Nobody could arrest the Avengers, until the Accords,” Peter says, crouching next to her, balancing on the balls of his feet.

It’s not a bad point. Too bad for Tony that it’s being made by a teenaged vigilante on a rooftop.

“Do you know what they did with them?” she says. “The ones they arrested in Germany. Falcon, Hawkeye, Scarlet Witch, Ant-Man?”

“Ant-Man? You mean the giant guy?”

“Um, apparently? Anyway, they’ve disappeared. No-one knows where they are or how to find them. They’re just…gone.”

“That’s…Is that legal?” Peter’s voice has risen into almost a squeak.

“No. Violation of constitutional rights, technically, but if they don’t admit to it, no-one can do anything about it.” She stands up. “And Tony Stark signed a piece of paper saying he’d let it happen. All I’m saying is…don’t trust him.”

She turns to leave, but Peter’s voice stops her.

“Just because someone’s taken it too far,” he says, “doesn’t mean that the Accords were wrong.”

“Maybe,” she says. “Just promise me you’ll watch your back.” It’s the best she can hope for, it seems.

“Yeah. You too.”

The rest of the week is a long, slow, uphill battle. She calls the Task Force on a daily basis, to no avail, but her pro bono clients need her attention, too, and she’s playing catch-up to the work she missed while she was in Europe. On Friday evening, after she, Becky and their intern Kirsten have stayed late at the office to work on their cases, she drags herself up the stairs to her apartment and debates whether she should go out tonight.

She’s on the second floor when she recognizes the sound she’s been hearing since the street. A heartbeat, inside her apartment. Strong and steady, not slow like Steve, but kept under near-superhuman control.

Mattie opens her apartment door, leans her cane against the wall, and locks the door.

“Tony send you?” she says.

Natasha Romanoff stands up from the couch.

“So you haven’t heard,” she says.

“Heard what?”

“What happened in Leipzig.”

“You mean the fight?”

“How it ended.” Mattie doesn’t say anything as Natasha moves toward her. “I shot the King of Wakanda so that Steve and Bucky could get away.” She’s not lying.

“Why?”

“Because they managed to convince me that it was the right thing to do.”

“And now?”

“Still think it was the right thing to do.”

Mattie nods. “Do you want a beer?”

“Love one.”

Mattie pulls out two bottles and pops them open, handing one to Natasha.

“So why are you here?” she says.

“I heard you haven’t been able to get a meeting with your clients,” Natasha says.

“That’s true. Task Force won’t tell me where they are, let alone let me in to speak with them.”

“What if I could arrange a meeting?”

Mattie cocks her head. Natasha’s not joking, she doesn’t think.

“How would you manage that?” she says.

“I know someone who’s on his way there. And he wants you to go with him. He says he heard it’s beautiful there this time of year.”

Mattie smiles.

“Let me grab my stuff.”

It’s not as simple as just packing and leaving. Natasha tells her that she’ll need to arrange to be out of town for at least a week, without raising suspicion. Of course, Natasha already has a plan for that.

“You’re…fine,” Claire says as Mattie opens her apartment door. “You said it was important, I thought you’d be bleeding out, or something.”

“That happen often?” says Natasha, leaning against the wall. Mattie hears Claire’s heartbeat spike as she sees her.

“Less than people think,” Mattie says, because she always feels the need to impress Natasha. She turns back to Claire. “I think you better come inside.”

“Yeah,” Claire says. Mattie closes the door behind her. “So what’s this about, and why is the Black Widow in your living room?” Then she stops. “Oh.”

“Mm-hmm,” hums Natasha.

“Steve?”

“He needs my help,” Mattie says. “I’m going to be gone for at least a week, and I need you to cover for me.”

Claire sighs and crosses her arms.

“Of course you do,” she says.

“I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important. And there’s no one else I trust.”

“There _would_ be, if -“

“I’m not asking Foggy, Claire.” There’s a pause.

“She just rolled her eyes,” Natasha says helpfully. There’s a tense pause between the three of them.

“This is for Steve?” Claire says.

“Yes.”

Claire shrugs. “What do you need me to do?”

“I need you to say I’m sick, that I’m out of commission. Tell them the mess with Steve has gotten to me, whatever you need to say. Just make sure nobody tries to come looking for me here.”

“OK. OK!”

“Thank you, Claire.” Mattie reaches out and brushes her hand against Claire’s arm.

“Go! Go help Captain America,” Claire says, and then she’s gone.

Natasha leads Mattie over the rooftops to the parking garage where her car is parked. They drive for most of the night, and Mattie has no idea where they are. Then Natasha slows the car, and Mattie hears the crunch of gravel under the wheels, then the soft susurration of grass.

“We’re here,” Natasha says.

When Mattie opens the door, she’s hit by the smell of wild grasses and spring wildflowers. It overwhelms her for a moment, a city girl in the middle of a field. Then she pays attention to her radar, and realizes that there are only two things in the field: Natasha’s car, and a quinjet.

The gangway of the jet descends, and Steve is there, and she doesn’t give a shit about appearances, because she’s running to him. When she reaches him, he scoops her up, and holds her with his arms around her waist, and she’s trying to make up for lost time with one kiss, and it’s not enough.

She’s vaguely aware of Bucky appearing behind Steve, and him and Natasha speaking quietly in Russian. She breaks the kiss, smiling.

“Hey,” she says.

“Hey,” he says. He puts her down. “Glad you could make it.”

“I’m just being a responsible attorney. Gotta help my clients.”

“Of course.”

Natasha is unloading Mattie’s bags, handing one to Bucky, who is holding out his right hand…and Mattie realizes that his left arm, the cybernetic one, is missing below the shoulder.

“What happened to Bucky?” she says.

“Tony did.” Steve doesn’t seem inclined to elaborate.

“OK, that’s everything,” Natasha says, shutting the trunk of the car. She pulls something small out of her pocket and hands it to Steve. “Everything you need is on there. Have fun at the prison, everyone.”

“You’re not coming with us?” Mattie says.

“I’ve got my own job to do. But I’ll see you soon.”

“Thanks, Nat,” Steve says, tightening his arm around Mattie’s waist.

Bucky says something short in Russian, and Natasha responds in the same language.

“Bye, Nat,” Mattie says.

“Take care,” Natasha says, and she climbs into the car. As she drives away, Steve turns Mattie around and leads her up the gangway into the jet.

“Let’s go get our people,” he says.


	5. Location Classified

“You really need all this stuff?” Bucky says, looking down at the three bags he brought onto the jet for Mattie. Steve is at the controls, so Bucky and Mattie are left to each other’s company in the back.

“Actually, one of those is for you two.” She runs her hand over each bag, until she finds the right one. Unzipping it, she pulls out Bucky’s backpack and holds it out to him. “I figured you’re not coming back to New York with me, and I thought you’d want to take this…wherever you go.”

Bucky takes the pack with his good hand. He’s moving awkwardly, off-balance, used to compensating for weight that isn’t there anymore.

“I can open it for you, if you want to check -“ Mattie starts.

“No, I can do it.” He crouches down, putting the bag on the floor, and braces it between his knees. He unzips it one-handed, and rifles through the contents.

“All there?”

“Yeah.” He pulls out one of the notebooks, and opens it, as if to be sure of the contents. “Thank you. I…you don’t know…what it means to me,” he says awkwardly.

“I have some idea,” she says gently. She stands, taking her bag with her, and brushes her hand against Bucky’s shoulder as she passes him. He flinches minutely when she touches him, as if he’s not used to being touched in any way that won’t hurt.

Mattie takes the bag with the rest of its contents into the cockpit, and sits herself down in the copilot seat.

“Hey,” says Steve. “What’ve you got there?”

“Some of your stuff, actually, that you left at my place.”

“You kicking me out?” His voice says he’s joking, but there’s an undercurrent to it because they both know there’s a very real possibility that Steve will never be able to go back to Hell’s Kitchen.

“I kept a few changes of clothes. You know…for the next time you’re in town,” she says, because she has to believe that will happen.

“So what’s in the bag?”

“Some clothes, your sketchpad, your iPod…Stuff I thought you might want.”

He reaches over and brushes his fingertips against her cheek.

“Thanks,” he says, and there’s so much under that one word that she doesn’t know about. He flicks a switch. “It’s going to be a couple of hours before we get there.”

“Where are we going?”

“It’s called the Raft. It’s a prison they’ve built in American waters, fully submersible. Intended for detaining super-humans.” _People like us._

“I assume you have a plan to get us into this submersible prison?”

“Yeah. We’ll do a full briefing closer to, but the USB Nat gave me is going override their communications, give the authorization to surface.” She nods. She’s never been great with computers, so she’ll believe that Natasha Romanoff can hack into a top-secret prison communications system. “Hey, you didn’t happen to pack my iPod cable, did you?”

“Yes, I did,” she says with a grin. “What do you take me for?”

“Hey, Buck,” he calls back. “You want me to put some music on?”

“What?” Bucky comes up behind them, standing with his hand on the back of Steve’s seat.

“Mattie brought my iPod. Think you’ve got a lotta catching up to do.”

“Sure.”

Steve fishes through the bag, pulling out the iPod and cable.

“Mattie’s the one who got me started…when I came out of the ice. She gave me twelve hours’ worth of music the first week we knew each other.”

“I’ll admit,” she says, “his obsession with Johnny Cash is sort of my fault.”

“The man was a national treasure.”

“ _Obsessed_ ,” she whispers to Bucky, who chuckles quietly.

Steve swipes at the touchscreen of the iPod. “What are we thinking? I’ve still got your decades playlists on here.”

“Really?” It’s been four years, she would have thought he’d left them behind a long time ago.

“Yeah, I like them.”

That makes her smile. “Bucky? Any preferences?”

“You pick,” Bucky says.

“I always had a weakness for the nineties,” she says.

“Nineties it is,” Steve says. A few swipes later, “Ice, Ice, Baby” is playing.

“You know,” Bucky says. “I _have_ been out in the world for two years. It’s not like I’ve been in a music-less box.”

“What are they listening to in Romania?” Mattie says.

“Right now? Justin Bieber,” Bucky says darkly.

Mattie groans. “Yeah, we’re definitely going to catch you up, if _that’s_ your impression of contemporary music,” she says.

“So what’s this?”

“ _This_ is Vanilla Ice, and be very careful what you say, because this is the sound of my childhood you’re talking about.” There’s a moment, and Mattie thinks Bucky and Steve are looking at each other. “What?”

“Nothing,” Steve says quickly. “Just…Bucky’s looking at me like I’m a dirty old man.”

“‘Cause you are,” says Bucky.

“Sure,” Mattie says, nudging Steve’s leg with her toe. “But you’re _my_ dirty old man.”

Steve puts his hand over hers where it’s resting on the console and strokes the back of her hand with his thumb.

“So do people still try to dance to music at all these days?” says Bucky. “‘Cause, this…”

“Hey, people still dance. Just probably not the way you remember,” Mattie says.

Steve chuckles. “The first time I asked you out, I asked Clint if I should offer to take you dancing.”

“What’d he say?”

“He said I wasn’t ready for clubs yet.”

Mattie laughs, because the thought of Steve Rogers in a club is too funny for words.

“That…is very true. That’s still true, please never take me to a club,” she says.

“What’s wrong with clubs?” says Bucky.

“Well, I’ve _heard_ that the dancing is more just grinding up on each other. Not to mention, with my hearing…not a good idea.”

“So you don’t dance?”

“I’ve danced with Steve. New Year’s. Otherwise, no.”

“Guess you just needed the right partner,” Bucky says, and there’s a smug note to his voice, and Steve blushes. _Wonder what that’s about._

“Guess I did,” she says.

Vanilla Ice finishes, and Sinead O’Connor’s voice comes over the speakers. _It’s been seven hours and fifteen days since you took your love away._

“Wanna?” Steve says, holding her hand.

She hesitates, then smiles. “Sure.”

Steve leads her into the open space behind the cockpit, and puts his arm around her waist. He’s not a great dancer, but he holds her close, and she leans her head against his chest as he leads her in a slow circle, roughly in time to the music.

“Nothing compares to you,” she sings along softly.

He tightens his arm around her waist, and dips his face, his nose brushing against the top of her head. Time slows, and Mattie wishes she could stay here forever, Sinead O’Connor’s voice filling the quinjet, and Steve Rogers’ arms around her.

They spend the rest of the flight killing time. Steve and Bucky fill Mattie in on what happened in Siberia, the fight with Tony, and their new alliance with the Wakandan King T’Challa.

“So why’s Natasha not here?” Mattie says.

“‘Cause we need her to steal everyone’s gear back,” Steve says.

Mattie thinks that over. “OK, I know that you guys have a sentimental attachment to your stuff, but shouldn’t our priority be getting everyone out?”

“It is. But there’s a complication. I told you about Scott?”

“Ant-Man?”

Bucky snickers.

“Yeah, him,” Steve says. “So, you know what he can do?”

“Shrink, right?” Mattie says.

“And grow,” says Bucky.

_Oh, that’s what Peter was talking about._

“Turns out,” Steve says, “he can do that because of the suit his girlfriend’s father built with tech he developed back in the eighties. She managed to contact us when she found out Scott had been arrested, and apparently, her father’s been hiding his research since for about thirty years. PymTech almost replicated it last year, and it nearly got sold to HYDRA before he had Scott steal it.”

“Trust me, the last thing anyone should want is HYDRA being able to do what Scott can,” says Bucky.

Mattie nods. “And if Ross has his hands on the suit, he can have Tony reverse engineer it. And God knows what they’d do with it.”

“Or who’d have access to it,” Bucky says.

“So we’re taking a two-pronged approach to this,” Steve says. “ _We’re_ going after our people, and hopefully we’ll be a big enough distraction that it’ll help Nat and Hope when they go to steal the gear. It has to be at the same time, or they’ll buckle down on security at the second target.”

“Which is why you asked me to come.”

“Well, you have to admit, you’re not exactly subtle,” Steve says fondly.

“I thought you wanted me to stay out of this.”

“I did. And if there were any other way, I would,” he lies. “But we can’t do this with just me and Buck -“

“I’m not exactly reliable in close-quarters combat right now,” Bucky supplies.

“And, well, we’re past the point where we need a lawyer, and…and Tony hasn’t turned you in. And if he didn’t after what happened in Siberia, I don’t think he ever will. So we just have to make sure you don’t get caught.”

“I’m good at that,” she says brightly. She doesn’t call Steve on his lie, because, in all honesty, she’s glad that she’s not a last resort, and she can let him have his reasons.

A little while later, Steve announces that they’re an hour out from their destination. They change out of their civvies; Mattie into the Daredevil suit, and Steve and Bucky into kevlar and combats. Mattie brushes her hand over Steve’s chest.

“No star-spangled suit?” she says, resting her hand over where the star had always been.

“I’m…not Captain America anymore,” he says. “Not even sure America will have me at all.”

“A man without a country,” she says sadly.

“For now.”

She goes to the bag that had been carrying her suit, and pulls out the set of billy clubs she’d stashed in the bottom, wrapped in her old nylon holster. She holds them out to him.

“Natasha told me you’d left the shield behind,” she says. “So I thought you might need some new weapons.” He takes them from her hand. “They’re my old ones. The ones Melvin gave me when I went after Fisk. They’ve…served me well.”

“Thank you.” He steps forward and kisses her quickly, before strapping the holster on.

Steve heads up the mission briefing, which unfortunately involves visual aids in the form of a hologram. Mattie can feel the electric charge in the air, but there’s no shape to make out.

“…land on the roof. Bucky will hold the jet and keep our exit clear, and take the jet up if they try to submerge the prison. Mattie, you and I will head to the control room…” He’s waving his hand, presumably pointing at the hologram.

“Landing at the six o’clock, control room two levels down at the twelve o’clock,” says Bucky in an undertone to her. Steve pauses.

“He’s better at this than you are,” Mattie says.

“No, he’s not,” Steve snaps. He’s probably glaring at them. “The _control room_ is two levels down. Stairwells at the four cardinal points of the prison. We need to take out their communications, because Natasha’s hack can only hold them for so long, then try to lock down the guards. Level below that is staff living quarters, and the detention levels are the two levels below that. Unfortunately, that means we might have to fight our way through literally the entire staff if we can’t cut them off.”

Mattie smiles. “Sounds fun.”

“Priority is getting our people out of the cells; they’ll be able to assist with the retreat to the jet. Worst case scenario is if they guards regain control of the submersion controls and sink the prison. Contingency in _that_ case is we get Wanda to clear the water out of the way so Bucky can land the jet and get us out.”

“And if Wanda’s incapacitated?”

“We retake the submersion controls. By any means necessary.”

“You know how I feel about that.”

“By any means necessary, with deadly force as a last resort?”

“Better,” she grumbles.

“You realize that you’re not supposed to negotiate strategy during a mission briefing,” Steve says.

She shrugs. “Not an Avenger,” she says. Bucky snickers. Steve sighs. “Aren’t you glad you’re getting your team back?”

“Starting to be.” He opens a drawer, and pulls out three electronic buds. “Comms.” He hands them out, and Bucky slides it into his ear. “Mattie, I’ve turned down the volume on yours as far as it’ll go.”

“Thanks,” she says as she puts it in her ear.

“Test?” says Steve. It’s loud in her ear, intrusive, but she can live with it.

“Clear,” says Bucky.

“Clear,” says Mattie.

“Clear,” says Steve. “OK, we’re good to go.”

Twenty minutes later, Steve plugs in the USB Natasha gave him, and radio communication comes over the speakers. Steve taps the touchscreen on the jet’s computer.

“Raft prison, this is India-Mike-zero-eight, requesting authorization to land,” comes an unfamiliar female voice.

“India-Mike-zero-eight, this is Raft prison. Please provide access code authorization,” comes a male voice.

Steve taps the touchscreen twice.

“Access code authorization November-Sierra-Victor—one-niner-eight-four.”

“Access code accepted. Cleared to land.”

Steve taps the touchscreen again, then turns to the controls, flicking switches and maneuvering the wheel. Mattie feels the pressure change and the humidity rise as they descend. She grabs a handhold on the wall to keep her balance. There’s a gentle bump as they land.

“Buck, you know where the autopilot is?” says Steve, getting up.

“Yup, that one there,” says Bucky.

“Good. Take it up if the jet’s in danger of being compromised.” Steve claps Bucky on his good shoulder as Bucky unholsters a handgun. There’s an array of small arms laid out by the gangway.

Mattie picks up her helmet and pulls up the cowl over her hair before slipping the mask over her face, flicking the clasp closed at the nape of her neck.

“Ready?” says Steve.

“Ready,” she says, unholstering her clubs.

“Ready,” Bucky says.

“Let’s go,” Steve says. He hits the button, and the gangway descends.

There are three guards coming up onto the landing pad to greet them. Mattie feels Bucky slow his breathing beside her, and then he fires three shots, and the guards drop. Mattie realizes that Bucky has shot them through the radios on their shoulders as she’s running at the first one. She punches him twice in the face, and he’s out. Steve’s already knocked out the second guard, and is working on the third, and then they’re the only conscious people on the pad.

Steve glances back at Bucky, and they nod to each other. Mattie gives Bucky a salute with her club, and he salutes back with the gun in his hand. Then Steve pauses next to the hatch down into the Raft. Mattie cocks her head, but can’t hear anyone on the other side.

“Clear,” she says.

Steve opens the hatch, and takes point down the stairs. They move as quietly as possible, their boots making sounds only Mattie can hear on the metal steps. She puts her hand on his shoulder as they reach the bottom, and listens. On the other side of the door is a wide, open space, filled with what sounds like boxes and crates. A loading area. There are staff wandering around, nine in total. She holds up nine fingers, and Steve nods. She holds up three fingers, and sweeps her arm around to the right, then four fingers, sweeping front, and two fingers, sweeping left. Steve nods, and reaches out, pulling her in to kiss her before he turns to the door, and Mattie’s blood sings.

_Glad I’m not the only one who’s turned on by this._

Steve opens the door, and charges forward. Mattie swings right, and throws her billy club against the floor, letting it ricochet up into one of the guards’ face. The other guards on her side are shooting at her, so she leaps up onto a pallet of boxes before somersaulting off, landing astride one of them as she throws her second club into the other’s head. The one she landed on uses his weight against her, and forces her onto her back, hitting her armored torso twice before she can headbutt him with her mask, following up with two quick jabs to knock him out. She sweeps up her clubs as she feels a bullet miss her by inches. Steve’s taken down the four in the middle, leaving the two on the left, who are shooting at them. Mattie cartwheels to avoid being shot as Steve takes cover behind a pallet, then he throws one of his clubs against the ceiling, hitting the gun held by one of the guards. Mattie takes advantage of the distraction to attack, drawing the grappling line between her clubs, and throwing the end in an arc so it wraps around their legs, tripping them both. Steve rushes at them and two punches later, they’re out.

The radio on the shoulder of one of the guards crackles, “Martin, report!”

 _Shit_. They’ve run out of time. Steve and Mattie sprint to the next stairwell. There are guards coming up the stairs, and Steve holds the door for Mattie as she jumps down, sliding along the handrail and planting her boots on the first guard’s chest. The momentum brings down the first three of the group like dominoes, but the fourth manages to sidestep the mass of falling bodies and raise his gun, so Mattie has to twist as she falls past him, slamming into the edge of the stairs. She’ll have bruises all across her shoulder blades in a few hours. She kicks out at his gun arm, breaking his elbow, and slams a club across his face. Steve has already jumped down the stairs to the pile of guards at the bottom, and makes quick work knocking them out.

They don’t stop to catch their breath before opening the door at the bottom of the stairs, running into the hallway that runs around the circumference of the Raft. They charge forward, toward the control room, taking down anyone in their way, Mattie keeping an ear out for anyone coming up behind them. As they approach the control room, she hears someone give an order to seal the door, and she throws her club into the gap, jamming the door open. There’s swearing on the other side of the door, and orders are given to contact HQ, and complaints that there’s no signal. Then Steve shoulders the door open, and Mattie scoops up her club, and she feels a little bad, because most of the technicians aren’t armed, but they knock them out anyway. Mattie seals the door they came through as Steve hunches over a computer.

“Buck, we’re in,” he says.

“Good. We’re all clear up here so far,” comes Bucky’s voice over the comm.

Steve types quickly on the computer, and Mattie hears doors slamming shut, and angry voices, but no-one tries to approach the control room.

“Locked down the staff quarters. We’ve got a clear path to the detention levels,” Steve says. He types some more. “Cell locks are two-stage, need to be unlocked up here and on the detention level. I’ve just opened the locks here.” He’s still typing. “And I’ve wiped their cameras.”

Mattie smiles.

“Always looking out for me,” she says.

“Not going to let you wind up back here,” he says. “Right, we’re done here. Men’s level is one down, women’s two.”

“I’ll go get Wanda,” she says.

“Meet us on the men’s level.”

They take the door opposite the one they came in. The corridor is clear, but Mattie can hear guards on the levels below. The fight’s not over.

The stairs to the men’s detention level are clear, but when they burst through the door at the bottom, there are guards waiting for them. She leaves them to Steve, and swings around to take the next set of stairs down. She hears a click as Steve fastens his clubs together into the staff, and his heartbeat never falters as she glides down the stairs.

There are three guards on the women’s level. Their heartbeats are fast, their adrenaline high, and they clearly know what is happening around them. She flings the door open, and throws a club at one, rushing the second. She jumps and hooks her leg around his neck, throwing him to the ground. The third hesitates firing, giving her a chance to reach back and pull him forward, smashing his head off the floor. The first guard is recovering from the club to the head as the second stumbles to his feet, drawing a nightstick. The first guard does the same. She can hear the buzz of electricity inside them, so they must be electrified. One tries to stab at her, and she parries with her club, spinning them around so that the other’s nightstick makes contact with him instead of her, and his body seizes up as the electricity flows through him. She kicks him into his partner, sending them sprawling, but the one who hasn’t been electrocuted keeps his head, scrambling to his feet, picking up the club she’d thrown. He swings at her face, and she ducks under it, bringing a knee up into his stomach, dropping him to his knees, then striking him across the head.

“Mattie?” comes Wanda’s voice as Mattie collects her club. There’s a hum of electricity around her throat. _Is that a fucking collar?_ Screw unconstitutional, that’s _inhumane_.

“Hey, Wanda, we’re gonna get you out of there,” Mattie says, panting a little.

“The controls are over there,” says Wanda, pointing. “Sorry. At your…five o’clock.”

“Thanks.” It’s the guard’s station, a console with the cell controls. Mattie can’t tell the buttons apart. “Steve, I’m gonna need a bit of guidance on the controls. Which button opens the cells?”

“Hang on…” comes Steve’s voice, and the sound of violence being handed out. “Bottom row, third from the left. It’s big and round.”

Mattie presses it, and the cell swishes open, wafting a scent of an unwashed toilet and used bed linens. “Got it, thanks. Heading up to you.”

Wanda steps out of her cell. The sound of her clothes reminds Mattie of Claire’s scrubs, stiff and rough.

“Steve is here?” she says.

“Yeah, and Bucky. We’re getting everyone out.”

Wanda nods. “I knew he would. But I did not expect _you_.” She sounds like she’s smiling.

“Well, you’re my clients. I told Sam I’d do everything in my power.” Mattie brushes a gloved fingertip over the collar around Wanda’s neck. “What the hell’s that thing?” She has her suspicions, none of them good.

“To control my powers.”

“Does it hurt?”

“No. And yes.” Wanda’s not lying. Mattie nods; she can imagine what it would be like to be cut off from her own powers.

“We’ll get it off you as soon as we can. Let’s go.”

They climb the stairs to the men’s level; Mattie keeps her body from showing any signs of exhaustion. She can’t afford it.

“D-D!” Sam says delightedly as Mattie steps out from the stairs.

Mattie hefts a club threateningly.

“You really wanna go there, Wilson? Hey guys,” she says to the rest of the group.

“Good to see you,” says Clint.

“Uh, hi. I’m Scott,” says…well, Scott, apparently, raising a hand in greeting.

Mattie grins, and she hears Sam muttering under his breath, “Don’t say it, don’t say it…”

“Nice to meet you,” she says instead. She turns to Steve. “They’ve put a collar on Wanda that dampens her powers,” she growls angrily.

“Oh, uh, I can have a look at that,” says Scott. There’s a moment where all heads turn to him. “I…have a masters in electrical engineering,” he says modestly. “Give me a toolbox and I can probably get it off, or at least deactivate it.”

“We’ll save it for when we’re on the jet,” says Steve.

Mattie hears a clang two levels up.

“I think we have a problem,” she says, listening hard. “One of the sectors just got their doors open. They’re coming down after us.” She pauses, listening to the orders being given upstairs. “Bucky, you’re going to have company.”

“Got it,” says Bucky in her ear.

“Then we better move,” Steve says in the voice that has literally commanded a god. Clint and Sam snatch up the discarded handguns, and Scott and Wanda take the fallen guards’ nightsticks. Steve nods approvingly. “Let’s go.”

He leads the way up the stairs, Mattie at his back, and Sam and Clint bringing up the rear. The guards are in the corridor on the control room level. Then Mattie hears gunfire on the landing pad.

“They just tried to take the jet,” says Bucky over the comm.

“How’d that go?” says Steve.

“I said ‘tried,’” says Bucky casually.

Steve and Mattie have reached the top of the stairs.

“Coming up on the right,” Mattie says. “They’ve got another group heading for the control room, around the other way.”

“Great,” says Steve. “Let’s get to the jet before they dive.”

He throws the door open, and they burst through, Mattie leaping at the first guard coming at them while Steve aims low, taking out the next guard at the knees. Scott and Wanda follow them without hesitating, Scott getting in close to his target and taking him down with a judo throw, while Wanda wields her nightstick, holding a guard at bay until Sam pistol-whips him across the back of the head. Clint fires once, and the last guard drops his gun, shot through the hand. A second shot takes out his leg, and he collapses, swearing.

“Keep moving!” shouts Steve, and they’re running up the next set of stairs. At the top, Mattie can hear a team aiming at the door. She shouts the information to Steve. He stops, and turns his head to her. “Want to use your party trick?”

“Always up for it,” the devil says, brandishing a club in each hand.

He pushes the door open, staying back, and she dives through, twisting in midair to avoid the bullets fired at her, and rolls to her feet in the middle of the guards. She strikes out at knees and elbows, launching herself into the air to land a kick on someone’s face, and then she’s standing in the middle of a pile of broken, groaning bodies.

“Showoff,” says Sam as she spits out blood onto the floor.

“One more level!” says Steve, hauling open the next door.

Mattie cocks an ear to the control room.

“Steve, they’ve got the submersion controls back online,” she says.

“Everyone, up!” shouts Steve, and the former Avengers (and Scott) race up the stairs, Mattie and Steve bringing up the rear. They make it to the hatch on the landing pad, and Mattie can hear water starting to slosh over the edge.

“Shit, the guards!” Steve says when they’re halfway to the jet. 

The three guards they’d taken out when they landed and two more moaning from gunshot wounds are all lying on the tarmac; they’ll drown when the Raft dives. Steve grabs one around the waist and throws him over his shoulder, then reaches down to grab the one next to him too. Mattie grabs another one and drags him across the tarmac to the hatch, while Clint and Sam grab the last two. They unceremoniously throw them into the stairwell and close the hatch, and Mattie can feel water under her boots. They sprint through the deepening water to the jet, then the gangway slides up, and Steve’s throwing himself into the pilot seat, taking them up.

Everyone has collapsed into seats or onto the floor, and Clint starts laughing.

“What?” says Sam.

“Steve swore,” Clint singsongs. “ _Language_ , Cap.” 

Bucky snickers. “You think he doesn’t swear?”

“He told Tony off for swearing over the comms one time.”

“I told you, it just slipped out!” calls Steve. 

Clint hauls himself to his feet. “Yeah, sure. Here, let me fly, you’ve had a busy day.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah, you got the coordinates?”

“Just programmed ‘em.” Clint takes the pilot seat, and Steve comes into the back as Mattie slips her helmet off and pulls down her cowl.

“Hey, what about that toolbox?” says Scott.

“I’ll get it,” says Sam. He pulls it out from a cupboard. “Just make sure you don’t electrocute her, or something.”

“Nah, it should be fine, doesn’t look that complicated…” Scott starts sifting through the box. Wanda moves to sit next to him, and while he gets to work on the collar, he says to Bucky, “Uh, I don’t mean to be rude, but didn’t you have more…arm last time I saw you?”

“Yeah, what happened with HYDRA?” says Sam. “You guys get the Winter Soldiers?”

“No,” says Bucky.

“Zemo did,” says Steve. “It was a setup.” As he launches into a summary of the events in Siberia, Mattie gives him her comm (she sighs with relief when she pulls it out of her ear), takes off her gloves, and unclasps the top of her suit. He lets Bucky take over as he puts away their comms and takes off his vest, and when Bucky gets to the part where Tony tore off his arm, Mattie hears an electrical spark, then the humming around Wanda’s neck disappears. Wanda relaxes as Scott slips the collar off her. Steve takes over the story again, talking about finding T’Challa, and Scott’s girlfriend’s involvement. As he talks, he stands behind Mattie, who is leaning against the wall with her arms crossed. He surreptitiously reaches out and strokes the bare fingers she’s tucked under her arm, making her breath catch. She twitches her fingers, and he squeezes them before pulling his hand back.

“So where are we headed?” calls Clint from the cockpit.

“The one country in the world that isn’t trying to arrest us,” says Steve.

“So, Wakanda?” says Sam.

“Yup.”

“OK, one last question?” says Scott.

“Sure,” says Steve.

“Who’s she?” Scott points at Mattie. “Sorry. Should I know who you are? Are you an Avenger?”

“Nope. I’m Mattie,” she says.

“Daredevil,” says Sam. “Also, Steve’s girlfriend.”

“Oh. That’s cool,” Scott says. “So you’re a superhero too?”

“No,” Mattie says, at the same time as Steve says, “Yes.” “Technically, I’m a vigilante,” she finishes.

“So are we all,” says Wanda, and Mattie feels…something, like electricity but not, radiating from her fingers. “So, I should think, whatever they call us, you are, too.”

“Face it, D-D,” says Sam, “you joined the superhero club a long time ago.”

_All I wanted was to make my city a better place._

“Nah, but if you guys had told me that being an Avenger was this much fun, I’d have joined up ages ago,” she says.

They laugh, and the conversation turns to Scott’s girlfriend, and her father’s tech, and while everyone is talking, Steve leans forward, his breath gentle on her ear.

“What now?” she says quietly.

“We hide out in Wakanda,” Steve says. “Until the coast is clear.” And his heart spikes. He’s lying to her. Again.

She wishes she knew why.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And with this chapter, the "short epilogue" is officially longer than the original story. We've also passed 1000 hits, so thank you, all of you, for sticking with it and letting me know you're enjoying it!


	6. Wakanda

They land in Wakanda as the sun is coming up; Clint complains about the sun in his eyes. Mattie can hear the sounds of nature, animals and falling water, and the gentle movement of plants and trees, and the air is thick with moisture and the smell of blooming flowers. They’ve landed outside a large stone building, behind which Mattie can just sense the rise of a mountainside. Natasha is waiting on the tarmac with a man and a woman, a small group of people hanging back behind them.

“Hey guys,” she calls as the gangway descends. “What took you so long?”

“Steve wouldn’t stop to ask for directions,” Sam quips. He pauses next to Natasha. “He told us what you did. So, thanks.”

“Anytime,” she says.

“Couldn’t have figured it out before you hit me?” says Clint.

“Probably would have hit you anyway. Just because. Hey, Wanda.”

“Nat,” says Wanda, wariness and warmth in equal measure crammed into one syllable.

Scott has rushed to the woman on the tarmac, and is hugging her. _This must be Hope._

“Everything go OK?” says Steve as he and Mattie exit the jet. An attendant rushes forward to relieve them of their bags.

“Smooth as silk,” Natasha says. “Starting to wish I had a shrinking suit, though.”

“Talk to Hope’s father, he might make you one.” Steve takes Mattie’s hand. “C’mon, I should introduce you to T’Challa.”

Bucky is hanging back in the jet, and Natasha calls out something in Russian to him. He responds gruffly, and goes to her.

Steve leads Mattie over to the man waiting on the tarmac, tall and still as stone. He reminds Mattie of the Chaste’s warriors, all coiled power. A tall woman starts forward when Steve and Mattie approach him, but he holds out his hand, and she steps back discreetly.

“Highness,” Steve says.

“Captain. I see you had a successful mission.”

“We did. I’d like to introduce Matilda Murdock.”

Mattie’s not sure if she should curtsey or something, so she opts for holding out her hand. “Highness.”

T’Challa, King of Wakanda, laughs and shakes her hand. “This is the lady who gave the Royal Prosecutors so much trouble? It’s a pleasure, Miss Murdock.”

“All mine, I’m sure.”

“I’m not sure if you’ve met the rest of the team…” says Steve as the rest of the group quiets down.

“Only briefly, and not under the best of circumstances,” says T’Challa. “But I do know who all of you are. And Miss Romanoff and Miss Van Dyne have been kind enough to tell me a little about all of you this morning. Please, come in, you are all welcome.”

“Where are we, exactly?” says Clint as they file into the building.

“One of the royal residences. I assure you, it is quite secluded, and no-one save the staff know you are here. I must apologize that I will have to leave tomorrow morning; my coronation starts in a few days, and I have responsibilities in the capital.”

“We understand,” says Steve.

“Normally, it would be an honor for you to attend, but, given the international attention Wakanda has received, there will be a large number of foreign dignitaries, and we have no way to prevent word of your presence here leaking out. But, for today, it is my pleasure to be your host. Now!” They’ve reached a main hall, echoing in stone, and there are several attendants waiting for them. “I’m sure you would all like to rest after your flight. Captain Rogers, Miss Murdock, Sergeant Barnes, and Mr Wilson, we have rooms in the east wing for you, if you would care to follow Luxolo…” An attendant steps forward and ushers them down a hall as T’Challa directs the others into the west wing.

Luxolo politely leads them to their rooms, telling them to ask for him if they need anything. Steve and Mattie’s room is the last one, farthest down the hall. “…and we’ve laid out fresh clothes for you. His Highness has asked us to serve lunch at noon, if you would like to join him.”

“Thank you, we’d be delighted,” says Steve. 

Luxolo nods and shuts the door behind him. Mattie can hear Sam sighing as he turns on the shower, while Bucky stalks around his room. She breathes in. There’s a cool breeze coming through an open set of doors, and she steps out onto a stone verandah. She can hear rushing water to her right.

“There’s a waterfall right next to us,” Steve says behind her. “If you lean out, you’ll probably feel it. It’s beautiful, there are rainbows everywhere. And flowers, there are vines climbing up the walls and around the railings.”

“Sounds like paradise,” she says, resting her hands on the railing, feeling the rough texture of the damp stone.

“It is,” Steve says, his voice choked with emotion. Mattie pauses, and he comes up behind her, resting his hands over hers. She tilts her head back, and he kisses her softly.

“I don’t know about you,” she teases, “but I’m _dying_ to get out of this suit.”

He doesn’t laugh, or even chuckle, the way she expects him to. Instead, he turns her around so that her ass is pressed against the railing, and kisses her hard, his tongue pushing into her mouth as if she were the only water in a desert. He tries to grope her, but with the suit on, he’s more likely to get a handful of armor than anything else, so she breaks the kiss and starts on the clasps of the suit. She gets the top half unclasped, and Steve shoves it off her so that it’s hanging around her waist, then pulls her against him for another furious kiss. His hands fumble in her hair, and she hears the elastic break and her hair falls down around her shoulders as he pulls her into the bedroom with his hands on her hips.

She tugs at his t-shirt, and he drops it on the floor before he grabs her by the waist and literally _throws_ her onto the bed. She lands on her ass, and Steve is already climbing on top of her, feeling her breasts through the thin underlayer she wears under the suit.

“Hang on, boots…” she gasps.

“Oh, yeah,” he says, and they make quick work of shedding their boots before she rolls onto him, grinding against him as she pulls off the underlayer and her sports bra. She unbuckles his belt and slides her hand into his pants, making him groan, before she pulls his pants and boxers down and off. While she’s at the end of the bed, she strips out of the bottom half of the suit and the tights she wears underneath.

“Are my bags here?” she says.

“Yeah, sitting on the chest over there,” he says, waving a hand towards the door. She can sense the chest, and the bags sitting on top. She strides over and opens the bag with all her civilian clothes, and fishes around until she finds the strip of condoms she’d packed (the London-Berlin trip has taught her to always be prepared when it comes to Steve). “Do you know how beautiful you are after a fight?” he says, propped up on one elbow.

She smiles as she climbs onto the bed, throwing her leg over his lap and leaning over him to kiss him.

“Tell me,” she whispers. She moves her mouth to his ear, and he groans quietly as she traces her tongue around the shell of it.

“Nnggh…you look…so powerful…ohhh…” She closes her teeth around the lobe of his ear, tugging at it. “God, like you’re untouchable.” His hands are pressed against her back, and there’s a bruise under one of them that proves that she’s _not_ untouchable, but she’s not about to argue the point. She works her lips down his jaw to his throat, feeling his pulse against her skin. He brings a hand up into her hair. “Like a goddess,” he whispers.

She kisses him deep for his hyperbole.

“You know,” she teases as she sits back, grinding her hips against his erection, “I think you just get turned on watching me fight.”

“That too.” He hooks a finger into the side of her underwear, and she has to climb off him to shimmy out of it as he rolls on the condom. She straddles him again, and he guides himself inside her. She leans down so that she’s propped up with her elbows on either side of his head, and kisses him as she starts to ride him, slowly. His hands are cradling her ass, and he matches her pace, thrusting up into her. She presses her lips against his pulse again, nipping gently, tasting his skin, letting the scent of him surround her and the feel of his cock inside her overwhelm her.

He wraps his arm around her waist and sits up, changing the angle of his cock, and she gasps. She starts to grind faster as his hands squeeze and tease her breasts. He takes her nipple in his mouth, and she comes when he tightens his teeth on it.

He looks up at her, and runs a hand through her hair (as best he can - her hair’s a mess). 

“I wish…” he starts to say, but he stops himself, and pulls her down into a kiss instead. He brings his legs up, and guides her back, until she’s lying beneath him and he’s covering her with his body. She feels his skin against hers, and he laces their hands together as he moves inside her, coming with a sigh.

She falls asleep curled against him, and she’s only vaguely aware when he climbs out of bed.

“Just going to take a shower,” he whispers as she stirs. She mumbles something and goes back to sleep.

A little while later, she’s aware of him standing at the foot of the bed, pulling on a shirt. Her foot is cold, it’s poking out from under the covers where Steve had pushed them back, and she can feel that the aching and soreness from the fight have set into her body. Steve hasn’t moved after he finished dressing.

“You OK?” she mumbles.

“Yeah,” he says, but it’s heavy with meaning. He still doesn’t move.

“You need something?” She’s mostly talking to the pillow, but she knows when he shakes his head.

“No. It’s just…you look so…peaceful. I just want to remember… Would - would it be creepy if I drew you like this?”

“Do I have to move?”

“No.”

She waves a hand in no particular direction. “Go ahead. Do your thing.”

She always feels a little sad when Steve draws her, because she’ll never see the result, and the graphite is so light on the page that she can’t make it out with her fingertips. It’s so intimate, feeling his eyes scrutinizing her, trying to translate every detail into strokes of his pencil, and she wishes she could share the final product with him. She finds the sound of his pencil as soothing as his heartbeat, loves the way he relaxes as he works, the way his hands smell of good-quality paper and graphite when he’s done.

She has a vague realization that she’s currently naked, and shifts slightly to feel the sheets against her skin, reassuring herself that she’s covered. She wonders if Steve ever wants to draw her nude; he’s never asked.

_Probably a little too_ Titanic.

She drifts in the half-sleeping, half-waking twilight as she listens to his pencil dragging across the page, then he gets up and sits down on the bed next to her, brushing a hand that smells of graphite over her hair and kissing her temple.

“All done?” she says.

“Yeah.”

“What time is it?”

“Around eleven thirty.”

She groans and sits up, every muscle in her body protesting. “I should shower before we go down for lunch.”

“Right.”

When she emerges, she puts on the clothes that T’Challa had had laid out for them: flowing pants and a tunic that smell like linen and drape around her body. Steve is wearing something similar, although T’Challa seems to have not anticipated just how _big_ Steve is; the clothes fit tight around his chest and arms, and she can hear the fabric straining when he moves in a certain way.

“You look nice,” he says as she slips on her glasses.

“You always say that.”

“It’s always true.”

Lunch with T’Challa is pleasant and relaxed. Everyone seems to have gotten some rest (and Scott and Hope smell lightly of sex and each other), so the conversation is languid, T’Challa carrying most of it, telling them about the history of the palace, about some of the coronation rituals, asking about the Raft. When Mattie tells him about the constitutional violations, he says that the Wakandan government has already withdrawn its support of the Accords.

“Only one hundred and sixteen to go,” says Sam darkly.

After lunch, T’Challa gives them a tour of the palace; it’s built into the mountainside, next to the waterfall, so the communal rooms are stacked on top of each other, all of them with balconies or verandahs overlooking the valley below. The bottom level has a pool carved into the mountain’s natural caves, opening to a wide deck filled with potted plants and trees. When Wanda and Scott get excited about it, T’Challa instructs one of the attendants trailing along after them to be sure that swimsuits are provided.

The library has a bank of computers set up, apparently to Natasha’s specifications, and T’Challa assures her that the internet connections are secure, and that the laptop will connect to the network from anywhere in the palace. Natasha, Clint, Scott, and T’Challa spiral into a technical conversation until Hope interrupts them with, “OK, the non-nerds over here are thinking about jumping into that pool, if that’s fine with you?”

So it’s an impromptu pool party for the afternoon. In between dips in the pool, they discuss the plans for the next step: Natasha and Clint will keep tabs on the communications surrounding their escape and any attempts to recapture them, and once the initial furore dies down, T’Challa will help smuggle Clint, Scott, Hope, and Mattie back to the US. Natasha brings the laptop down from the library, and after spending a little time typing furiously, lets Clint call Laura over the secure connection.

“Say hi, everyone!” Clint calls, holding up the laptop with the screen facing the pool. There’s a chorus of “Hey, Laura!”

“Seriously, you guys are international fugitives, and you’re having a pool party?” laughs Laura.

“Not much else to do,” Clint says, walking around with the laptop. “But look at this, it’s gorgeous, and check out the view -“

“Wait, did Steve have his shirt off?”

Clint sighs and turns the laptop around to where Steve is bringing Mattie a beer. “Say hi, Steve.”

“Hi, Laura,” Steve says, starting to blush.

“Hi, Steve,” she says. “Thanks for saving my husband’s ass.”

“It was kind of my fault it needed saving in the first place.”

“It was the right thing to do, and he knew what he was getting into. Don’t feel guilty. Oh, and thanks to you, too, Mattie!”

Mattie raises her beer in the laptop’s direction and smiles.

“OK, let’s get away from the hot people in swimsuits…” Clint says, turning the laptop around.

Once Clint and Laura have finished, Natasha sets up a call to Hope’s father. After Hope and Scott reassure him that they are fine, Hope asks him if he wants to talk to Steve. He says yes.

“Dr Pym,” Steve says, “it’s an honor.”

“Mine as well,” Pym says. “I wanted to thank you for your efforts on mine and Hope’s behalf. I’m sure you can appreciate how important it is to me to keep the Ant-Man technology out of Tony Stark’s hands.”

“I do, sir, and I’m glad that we could help, although Natasha is really the one who did all the work getting the suit back.”

“Please let her know how grateful I am.”

“Nat, you heard that?” Steve calls across the pool.

“Yeah, I did!” Natasha calls back.

“She knows,” Steve says. “And I can assure you that we are doing our best to make sure Hope and Scott get home as soon as possible.”

“Thank you, I appreciate it, Captain. If you ever need anything, please feel free to contact me or Hope.”

“Actually, there is something…” Steve outlines the loss of Bucky’s arm, and Pym says he can see about designing a replacement.

“I’m sure Hope and Scott will be happy to help out, too,” Pym says.

“Yeah, sure, not like I’ll be able to do much of anything else for a while,” says Scott.

The afternoon idles on. Natasha convinces T’Challa to let her have the run of the bar, and cocktails start being passed around. She mixes one she calls the Black Panther in their host’s honor: “strong, creeps up on you, and will knock you dead.”

“Miss Romanoff, I don’t think I’ve ever been more flattered,” the King of Wakanda says.

Bucky lurks around the edges of the party, still fully dressed, not drinking more than beer. Sam gives him a hard time before diving into the pool again.

“Not much of a swimmer?” Mattie says, sitting down next to Bucky.

Bucky gestures with his right hand at the stump of his left.

“Not great with coordinated movement yet. Probably just embarrass myself.” He takes a drink. “You neither, I take it?”

Mattie hasn’t been in the pool yet. She shrugs. 

“I actually like swimming. The water…it dampens my senses. When I was a kid, I used to hold my breath in a bathtub just to block everything out, and swimming…it’s actually pretty peaceful. But, uh, _this_ …” She waves at the pool full of rowdy superheroes, and Bucky chuckles.

“Yeah, not exactly peaceful.” He pauses, turning his face toward her. “Mind if I ask what you mean when you talk about your senses?”

“I thought Steve would have told you.”

He shakes his head, and catches himself. “I shook my head. Can you tell that?”

“Yeah.” She laughs. “You know, when Steve found out, he did almost the exact same thing.” 

“How _did_ he find out?”

“Youtube, of all things.”

She explains about the Daredevil videos that Steve had seen (“I blame Clint entirely.”), then tells Bucky about her senses, even a little about her accident.

“Huh,” he says when she finishes. “The devil in a world on fire.”

“I can appreciate the irony,” she says lightly.

T’Challa has dinner brought to the deck: traditional Wakandan stews served with flatbreads. They sit around the communal serving dishes and tear off pieces of flatbread, scooping up bites with their fingers. Some of the dishes are too spicy for Mattie’s taste, but she enjoys the rest. She discreetly tears up a flatbread into pieces and passes them to Bucky, who is sitting next to her. When Steve notices what she’s doing, he squeezes her knee. None of them say anything about it.

Sam and Bucky _do_ get into a competition over who can eat the spiciest food. Bucky wins. Sam has to do a round of shots.

After dinner, Mattie is leaning on the railing, letting the cool mountain breeze refresh her, enjoying listening to the others talk about inconsequential things like must-see places to visit in San Francisco. T’Challa tears himself away from the bar, holding two drinks, and comes up behind Mattie.

“Miss Romanoff said you might like a Cosmopolitan,” he says, holding out a glass.

“Thank you,” Mattie says. “She’s very good at knowing your drink.”

“I suspect it is a skill that has served her well.”

“Maybe, but I’m not sure it was standard SHIELD training.”

T’Challa laughs, rich and low. Mattie has no interest in him, but she can still feel herself turning into a teenaged girl talking to the star quarterback. She’s three seconds away from giggling and tossing her hair. _Foggy, I made the King of Wakanda laugh._

“And may I ask about your training, Miss Murdock?” he says. “Did it include knowing someone’s drink?”

“Only as far as knowing how much a law student can pour down their throat,” she says with a smile.

“I wasn’t aware that law school would scar quite so badly,” T’Challa says lightly. He reaches out and brushes a fingertip across the scar on her forearm.

“That was later,” she says. “A ninja named Nobu.”

“Did you win?”

“Twice.” _I killed him twice._

“Then it is a badge of honor.”

Mattie’s not sure how to respond, so she sips her Cosmopolitan. Perfect, naturally.

“I have a proposition for you,” T’Challa says.

“Does it involve ninjas?”

T’Challa laughs that rich laugh again. “No. Well, I sincerely hope that it won’t.”

Mattie laughs with him. “All right, Highness, I’m curious. What is it?”

“My government is opening a permanent mission to the United Nations in New York. I feel that we will need legal advice.”

Mattie hesitates. “I’m a defense attorney by training. International law isn’t my area of expertise.”

T’Challa waves a hand dismissively. “I have lawyers here to deal with that. No, we need someone with more local knowledge. Planning permission for the mission, immigration assistance for Wakandan citizens…” And that’s actually Mattie’s area of expertise, these days. “Miss Romanoff told me about your legal clinic, and I thought you might be a perfect fit for our needs. We’d keep you on retainer, of course -“

“Well, you just said the magic word,” she says with a smile.

“Then you’ll agree?”

“If you wouldn’t mind having the mission send a contract over to my office, I’d be happy to look it over.”

“Of course. It would be a pleasure.” T’Challa raises his glass, and Mattie clinks hers against it. “I do have one other request.”

“Mmm?”

“The last time I was in New York, it was my first time in America. I was a student, we went to all the highlights, but I don’t believe I ever saw anything of New York but the bright lights. I would be very grateful if the next time I visited New York, you might show me the Devil’s Hell’s Kitchen.”

Mattie drinks her Cosmopolitan.

“You’ll have to be prepared for some very cheap booze, Highness,” she says, and he laughs again.

“Miss Murdock, I went to Oxford. Whatever cheap booze you find, believe me, I’ve drunk worse.”

She smiles and sips her drink. “In that case, I’d be honored.”

She and Steve say good night soon after that. They walk quietly up the stairs to their room, and Steve keeps glancing back at her, as if he’s afraid she’ll disappear. _This isn’t Hell, Steve. I’m not Eurydice._ When they reach their room, Steve closes the door, and the one out to the balcony, then they jostle for space in the bathroom to brush their teeth before stripping off their swimsuits and sliding into bed. For a long moment, they’re just still, letting the world drop away.

He reaches out, and his fingertips brush across the scar on her chest, the one where she’d been shot with an arrow.

_Do you like them? Are they ugly?_ She doesn’t know. She’s never asked. His hand drifts down her arm, and he pulls her hand up, pressing his lips against the scar on her forearm. She slides her fingers through his hair as he lowers his lips to her chest, kissing the scars there, before working his way down to the two on her stomach. _What do they say, the ones you bring home?_ Steve hadn’t flinched, the first time he saw her scars, the night they’d fought Ultron. He’s never flinched, not from her scars or her bruises or the wounds that no-one can see.

He slides up her body again, and she pulls him into a kiss, tasting toothpaste and beer and spice. She slides her hands down his back, squeezing his ass, making him smile against her lips before he grabs her by the hips and flips her over onto her stomach. He brushes her hair over her shoulder, baring her skin, and plants a kiss on her shoulder, then on the scar just below, then works his way over the line of bruises she accumulated at the Raft. It hurts just the right amount, the pressure lighting up her nerves, making her wet between her legs. He slips a hand around to her breast as his lips flutter down her spine, and she’s panting, tasting sex with every breath. She can feel his erection pressing against her ass, and she presses back. He grinds against her, pulling her against his chest, his breath in her ear. He bends her forward so that she’s on her hands and knees, and slips a finger inside her, then another, making her hiss and sigh some combination of “Yes” and “Oh, God” and “Steve.”

She’s barely aware of anything except his fingers working inside her and the miasma of sex that permeates the world on fire. She groans as he pulls his fingers out, wordlessly pleading for more, but he bends over her, kissing the side of her neck.

“This OK?” he whispers. And she smiles, because he’s Steve, and he’ll fuck her until she screams, but God forbid he do it _disrespectfully_.

“God, please, yes,” she manages to get out, and turns her head so he can kiss her before pulling away.

The smell of arousal and the sound of blood rushing almost drowns out the tearing of the condom packet and the smell of lube and latex. He puts his hand on her hip, gently lining himself up before pushing in, pulling her hips back until he fills her completely. A moan rips out of her throat as he thrusts into her, and she’s sure she says “harder” at some point, because she winds up having to brace one arm against the headboard to stop her forehead from smashing into it, and he’s pounding into her, she’ll be sore tomorrow, but she doesn’t care, it’s perfect, it’s exactly what she wants from him. When she comes, her orgasm runs the whole length of her body, curling up her spine until she cries out. For a moment, her muscles give out, and she can’t support her own weight, and Steve lays her down, still inside her, his chest against her back, and moves more slowly, each thrust making her tremble and shake. He comes inside her, and for a long moment, neither of them can move, lazy and sated and warm.

He moves first, slipping out of her, throwing out the condom in the bathroom. When he comes back, she’s rolled onto her side, and he lies next to her, his fingers tracing the lines of her face.

“Love you,” she murmurs as she curls against his side, nestling her head in his shoulder.

“I love you,” he whispers, his voice heavy. His heart speeds up and his breathing changes; it’s not a lie, but saying it makes him anxious.

She tells herself she’s too tired to ask, and instead presses herself closer against him, and drifts off to sleep.

T’Challa leaves in the morning, bidding them all farewell after breakfast. They’re left to their own devices; Natasha, Clint and Scott spend most of their time in the library, monitoring the communications about them. Clint and Scott get dragged out for a Team Bird vs Team Insect game of pool in the billiards room (Team Bird wins). Bucky keeps to himself, Steve trying to lure him out to talk to other people, and only occasionally succeeding. A conversation with Wanda about Mattie’s fight techniques leads to Mattie tying a blindfold around the other girl’s eyes.

“Is this necessary?” Wanda says.

“Your eyes can deceive you. Don’t trust them,” Mattie says.

“I got that reference!” Steve calls from the pool.

“That’s my boy,” Mattie calls back.

She teaches Wanda how to hear when something’s coming, to feel the air moving. She tosses tennis balls at Wanda, who tries to hit them either with her hand or her magic (she gets half of them).

“Is this what it’s like for you?” Wanda says as they finish, pulling off the blindfold. “All the time?”

“Yes,” Mattie lies. _You don’t know the half of it._

“What’s she mean?” says Scott.

“Um…” Mattie waves a hand over her face. “Because of this?”

“Because of…why is everybody looking at me?”

“You know she’s blind, right?” says Sam.

“She’s what? No. What?”

“Blind?” Mattie says helpfully.

“You’re not serious. You guys are messing with me.” Scott looks around at the rest of them. “I’ve seen you fight. How do you…?”

“What I was teaching Wanda. That’s how I fight.”

“Wow…I thought the glasses were just because you were too cool for the rest of us.”

And that breaks the tension. Everyone laughs, and the group breaks up.

That night, Mattie is woken up by a sound in Bucky’s room. She’s not even sure what it was; it wasn’t a crash, or anything violent. Just something…wrong. She listens, and she can hear Bucky’s voice, and his heart pounding with anxiety. He’s reciting dates. Which would be troubling, but not cause for serious alarm, except that she recognizes the tone of voice.

It’s the same one Frank gets when he’s about to shoot. _One batch, two batch. Penny and dime._

“Steve?” She shakes his shoulder. He mumbles something. “Steve, something’s wrong. I think something’s going on with Bucky.”

“What?” he says more clearly.

“Bucky, he’s…I don’t think he’s well.”

“Stay here,” he orders, jumping out of bed. She wants to protest, say that she can help, that he can’t tell her what to do, but she does as she’s told, and stays in bed. She hears his voice as he knocks on Bucky’s door. “Buck? It’s me. You OK?” Bucky doesn’t answer, still lost in a list of dates (Mattie has her suspicions of what the dates mean, and the thought makes her stomach clench). “Buck, I’m going to come in, OK?” Steve opens the door, and Mattie hears his heart speed up. “Oh…” he whispers. “Hey, Buck, it’s me. It’s Steve. Buck, look at me…”

It goes on like that for a long time (it might not actually be a long time, but it feels that way), before Bucky manages to answer Steve in any coherent way. 

“What’s your name?” Steve asks gently.

“James Buchanan Barnes,” Bucky says haltingly.

“And what’s my name?”

“Steve. Steven Grant Rogers.”

“Where are we? Right now?”

That takes more effort. “I…we’re…”

“Easy, Buck. Remember yesterday? Remember flying in with the rest of us?”

“They tried to take the jet.” Bucky’s very definite about that.

“Yeah, and you shot ‘em, and we all got away. And we came here. Remember?”

“Wakanda.”

“That’s right.”

Steve keeps going, talking about concrete things to remember, like what they ate for dinner, or who won the pool game, or what the clothes T’Challa had given them looked like. When Steve runs out of things to say, they sit in silence until Bucky falls asleep, and she hears the creak of a chair as Steve settles into it.

She slips on some sweats and a t-shirt, and pads down the hall to Bucky’s door, knocking quietly as she slips into the room. Bucky is curled up in a sitting position on the floor, wedged into the corner of the room, with a blanket tucked around him. Steve is sitting in the desk chair, nodding off.

“Hey,” he says quietly as she enters. “You should go back to bed.”

“Everything OK?” she whispers.

“Yeah,” he lies. “I’m gonna stay here with him. Go back to bed.” She turns to leave, and he whispers, “Thank you.”

“Of course,” she says.

The next day, all three of them pretend nothing ever happened.

The days start to blur; it’s like a vacation, except for the sword hanging over them. Mattie asks Natasha to help her check her emails, and finds several from Karen, asking for quotes for her article about the Avengers. Natasha sets up a secure call, and Mattie tells Karen as much as she can without incriminating herself. There’s rock climbing on the mountain, there’s more training with Wanda. Clint teaches Wanda how to shoot a bow and arrow, Sam and Mattie spar, and Bucky retreats further from the group.

And Steve…

Mattie can’t put her finger on what’s wrong with Steve. He spends a lot of time with Bucky (not surprising), but when he’s with her, he’s anxious and painstakingly careful, which makes him tense, which in turn makes her tense. He makes love to her with a kind of desperation, as if he’s afraid it’s their last time. For the first few days, she dismisses it as his worry over their impending separation, but he refuses to talk about the future, refuses to talk about how they’re going to cope.

Mattie breaks after three days of it.

It’s late at night, and Mattie’s a little drunk from the after-dinner drinks. They’d been talking as a group about next steps: Clint is going back to his family (trusting that Tony hasn’t given up their location), while Scott will hide out at Hope’s house (it’s easy to hide when you can shrink to the size of an insect). And Steve had been infuriatingly vague with Mattie, and she’s sick of it.

“What’s going on with you?” she demands as he closes the door to their room.

“What? Nothing,” he lies.

“Bullshit, I know you’re lying. What aren’t you telling me?”

“Mattie, this isn’t the time -“

“No, it’s exactly the time. You’ve been acting weird since we got here, so tell me what the hell is going on.”

He reaches out to her. “Please, don’t - I don’t want to ruin this -“ She steps back, away from him.

“Well, it’s a little late for that, because I’m _sick_ of whatever you think you’re doing, so start talking.”

“I…” He sounds like he can’t find the words. She crosses her arms, implacable. “Mattie, I love you. You need to know that. And what you’ve done for us, these past few weeks, it’s more than any of us could have asked for…”

“But?”

He takes a deep breath. “But when you go back to New York, that has to be it for you and me.”

The damn thing is, she’s not even surprised. That doesn’t mean she’s not furious, too.

“So, do I get a say in this at all?” she says spitefully. “Were you even going to bother asking my opinion, or were you just going to tell me when I was getting on the plane?”

“I was _going_ to tell you -“

“No, you don’t get to make decisions about the two of us!” she explodes. 

“Mattie, Ross is after you -“ 

“I don’t give a shit about Ross! He can come after me with everything he’s got, I’ll deal with it! That has nothing to do with you!”

“It has _everything_ to do with me, I’m the reason you’ve got a target on your back!” 

“What, you think that everything I’ve been through, I just did it for you?” He’s silent, breathing hard. “You may not have realized, but everything I did, I did because I believed it was the right thing to do.”

“Just like I believe that _this_ -“ His heartbeat spikes, even with the anger running through him.

“No, you’re lying again, so why the hell are you doing this?”

“I have to protect you!”

“Right, of course, because you know what’s best for everyone, don’t you? We should all just leave it up to Captain fucking America.”

“This isn’t about that. I can’t let you get dragged down with the rest of us -“

“No, you don’t get to _let_ me do anything! _I_ make my own choices, and you don’t get to _decide_ what’s best for me -“

“Who else is going to?!”

Mattie stands there with her mouth open, because there’s no response. She wishes she could hit him. A punching match would be easier than this.

“What the _fuck_ do you mean by that?” she growls.

“You say you don’t give a shit about Ross, but that’s because you never give a shit about protecting yourself. You just assume that you can take the beating and get back up again.”

“I’ve been doing fine so far,” she grits out.

“Yeah? Five months ago, you’d cut _everyone_ out of your life, you’d cut out _everything_ that was worth having.” 

“Don’t -“

“How long do you think you were going to last like that?”

“You don’t know -“

“And you still won’t even _try_ to talk to Foggy -“ 

“Don’t you _dare_ bring Foggy into this!” she screams. “Don’t you fucking dare.” All she can hear is the blood pounding in her ears. “I need to not talk to you right now,” she says, and she storms out, slamming the door. She can hear Steve throwing himself into a chair in their room behind her, groaning in frustration. She doesn’t care.

She doesn’t know where to go. Everything is fuzzy around her, she can’t make out any details. There’s too much sound, too many smells, the electricity in the walls is a cacophany, she can’t breathe…

She winds up gulping down cool air on the pool deck, leaning on the railing, pretending that her ragged breathing is because of her senses and not because she’s crying.

_Slow your breathing. Focus. Focus._ But Elektra’s not here, there’s no-one here whose heartbeat she can focus on. The sound of the water in the pool is quiet and rhythmic, so she tries to block everything else out and listen to the water lapping against the stone. It goes in and out; she can’t hold onto it. Everything is screaming at her, the world on fire is a wall of flame, and all she can think to do is strip off her clothes and dive into the pool in her bra and underwear.

It feels childish. She hasn’t had to do something like this in years, not since she was a teenager, messed up on hormones and abandonment. But the water takes her, embraces her, and the world on fire disappears, except for the smell of chlorine and the beating of her own heart.

She’s not sure how long she floats there, breathing in and breathing out, alone with her thoughts. 

_You still won’t even try to talk to Foggy._

_You don’t get to create danger, and then protect us from that danger._

_You don’t let anyone in._

_I’m the reason you’ve got a target on your back._

_All I ever needed was my friend._

_They’d love it if they knew that head came with little devil horns._

_I will dismantle the lives of the two amateurs that put me in here._

_Best damn avocados._

_You and me, I want this._

She’s jolted out of her spiral when the water starts moving differently, tiny waves indicating something moving in the pool. She lifts her head out of the water, and it’s Steve’s hand in the water, moving in slow arcs as he crouches by the edge of the pool.

“You couldn’t hear me,” he says.

She shakes her head, treading water. “Can’t hear much underwater.”

He nods. “Can we talk?”

She swims to the side, and pulls herself up onto the edge, her feet still in the water. Steve rolls up the cuffs of his pants and sits next to her. He’s barely inches away, she can feel the warmth of his body, and he’s never felt more far away.

The silence fills the space between them. The mountain air is cold on her wet skin.

“What are we going to do?” he says quietly. “Mattie, I - I don’t see…I don’t know how there’s a future for us. Not with all of this.”

_Preparation. Important tactical skill._ She’s never been good at planning things.

“I don’t care,” she says honestly. “I don’t care if there’s a future, because there’s a _here_ and _now_ , and I can handle that. I can handle what’s in front of me, and I don’t care what’s coming, because it’ll be in front of me soon enough. And I…” She’s blinking away tears, and hating herself a little for showing weakness. “You know I’m shit with relationships, OK? Before you, the longest I’d ever been with someone was about two months. And _she_ turned out to be a plant from a secret ninja army, so, yeah, I’m not great at healthy adult relationships. But I do know that the past five months, I’ve been happier than I can remember. And I don’t want to give that up.”

He nods, and pauses. “Even if it might be years before we can be together?”

“Yeah. If it takes years, we’ll deal with it. I have the feeling it won’t be, though.”

“How’d you figure that?”

“The world’s not _safe_. It’s going to need you, and soon, and when they realize that…you can come back.”

He runs his hand over her wet hair.

“You really believe that?” he says.

“Yeah, I do.”

“And what do we do in the meantime?” He wraps his hand around the back of her head and pulls her in against his chest, ignoring the fact that her hair is getting his shirt damp.

“Well, I _do_ set my own schedule. Long weekends, vacation days, I have lots of excuses to get out of town for a few days. Go somewhere nice and secluded.”

He kisses the top of her head.

“Got it all figured out, don’t you?” he says.

“It needs refining. But yeah.” She lifts her head and puts her hand on his face. “What do you say?”

“I…I’m sorry. I should have…I should have talked to you about this sooner. I shouldn’t have assumed -“

“No, you shouldn’t have.”

“And I should have known I should listen to you.” He takes her hand and kisses her palm before putting it back on his cheek. “OK.”

“OK?”

“Yeah. Let’s do it.” He exhales, long and slow, and pulls her against him again. “I shouldn’t have said that, back there.”

“It’s fine, I shouldn’t have said that either -“

“No, it’s - I know you can take care of yourself, I do. I just worry about you sometimes, when you act like you’re not afraid of anything. I just…don’t want to see you get hurt.”

“Umm, I think you picked the wrong girlfriend, then,” she says, and he chuckles.

“Probably.” His arm tightens around her.

“And…you _know_ I agree with you about the Accords. I trust your judgement. Just…”

“Don’t make your decisions for you?”

“Yeah.”

He leans his forehead against hers. “I’m sorry, Mattie.”

She kisses him as her answer, slow and tender, her tongue gently exploring his mouth. He whispers “I love you” against her lips before diving in for another kiss, and then she tilts the side of her mouth up.

“What is it?” he says.

She grasps the front of his shirt where her hand had been resting, and shifts her weight sideways, toppling into the pool, pulling him in with her. The last thing she hears before she hits the water is Steve Rogers _yelping_.

She’s weightless in the water, Steve above her. She lets go of his shirt, and swims to the surface, gasping for air as he comes up in front of her.

“That - “ he gasps. “You’re insane.” He’s laughing, and he grasps her around the waist, her bare skin pressing against his wet clothes.

“You deserved it,” she laughs, and kisses him.

“Maybe,” he mumbles in between kisses.

She breaks his hold, and swims away, daring him to catch her. He’s a more powerful swimmer than she is, and he catches her easily, holding her from behind, one arm around her waist. The other trails over her skin as he kisses her shoulder, then the side of her neck. She laughs and squirms and drags him under the water again.

They play this game for a while, him chasing her, catching her and letting her go. Somewhere along the line, his shirt comes off, then his pants, until he’s down to his boxers. Her bra comes off, too, one time he catches her and traps her against the side of the pool, his mouth trailing down her throat to her breasts.

Eventually, he has her pulled against him, his hands dangerously close to slipping inside her underwear, and one of them says “We should go upstairs.”

They wrap themselves in towels from the stack by the pool, and gather up their discarded clothes as quickly as possible. They race as fast as they can up to their room, laughing all the way, until Mattie closes the door behind her, and Steve pulls the towel off her, pushing her wet underwear down, holding her with her back against the door and his tongue in her mouth and his hand between her legs. She fumbles with the towel around his waist, tossing it aside, and slipping her hand into his soaking boxers, stroking his cock in time with the movement of his fingers against her clit. She circles her thumb around the head of his cock, and he moans into her mouth, pushing his fingers inside her.

“Bed,” she whispers.

“Yeah.”

His fingers slip out of her, and she pulls her hand out of his boxers, instead sliding both hands around to grab his ass, relishing the feel of pure muscle under his skin. He turns them around, still kissing her, and walks her backwards until her legs hit the bed, and she sits down. She climbs backwards as he bends over her, until they’re both on the bed. She pushes his boxers off, letting them land with a wet sound on the hard floor, and she strokes his cock in earnest, feeling it get hard and slick under her hand. She pushes up on his chest with her other hand, until he’s kneeling in front of her, and she sits up, pressing her lips to his chest. She traces the lines of his abs with her mouth, working her way down until she brushes his cock with her lips. She gives the head a little kiss and a flick of her tongue, and he moans, his hand stroking her hair. She runs her tongue up the length of him, then swirls it around the tip, teasing him before she grips the base of his cock with her hand and takes him in her mouth. His fingers tighten in her hair as she pumps her mouth up and down on him, and he groans her name as he comes.

She slips away to rinse out her mouth. While she’s in the bathroom, she can hear him stroking himself, and she thanks God, Howard Stark, and Abraham Erskine for Steve’s superhuman refractory period. 

“Did you want a hand with that?” she says as she emerges from the bathroom.

“Wasn’t thinking about your hand,” he teases.

“Yeah?” She climbs onto the bed, straddling him, leaning forward so that her lips are almost against his. “What were you thinking about?”

He runs his hands up her sides, brushing over her breasts, and sliding one up her throat to her mouth.

“Thinking about this…” he says, slipping two fingers into her mouth. She nips at them with her teeth before sucking on them. “And these…” He pulls his fingers out of her mouth and cups her breasts, massaging them to make her gasp. “And this…” he whispers in her ear, slipping a hand down between her legs, the tips of his fingers curling inside her. He fingers her for a moment, and her breath becomes shaky as she gets wetter. He suddenly pulls his hand away and wraps his arm around her waist, rolling her onto her back in one smooth movement.

“I love you,” he whispers before he kisses her.

“I love you,” she says, her hand on his face as he rolls on a condom.

“I love you,” his heart beats out as he moves inside her.

The next morning, Sam pulls her aside as she comes down for breakfast, and hands her the bra she’d been wearing last night.

“Found it on the stairs this morning,” he says lightly.

“Uh, thanks,” she mumbles. Sam doesn’t move.

“So…guess you two are OK?” he says.

“What? Yeah, we’re fine. Why wouldn’t we be?”

“Just…that sounded like a hell of a fight last night.”

“You heard that?”

“You left your balcony door open.” _Shit_. “But _are_ you two OK?”

She smiles. “Yeah. We’re figuring it out.”

Sam claps her shoulder. “Cool. Just checking.”

“Thanks, Sam.” She turns to go back up to her room to put the bra away.

“You know I’m here, if you need to talk, right?”

“Yeah, I do.” She turns back and hugs him. He’s all muscle, but when he hugs her back, all she can think is how wonderfully _soft_ Sam Wilson is. “I know.”

It’s two more days before Natasha and Clint announce that the coast is clear for anyone going back to the States. Natasha makes the transport arrangements with T’Challa’s staff, and they all have dinner together, even Bucky, and stay up late in the parlour. Mattie’s half-asleep on one of the couches, curled up against Steve’s side, when she hears Hope say, “Oh, hey, the sun’s coming up.”

There’s some general murmuring about packing, and the party dissolves. The car that’s supposed to take them to the plane taking them back to the States is supposed to leave at seven, which gives them about two hours. As she and Steve climb the stairs, Mattie suddenly feels like two hours is no time at all.

There’s some frantic fumbling with clothes once they close the door, before Steve has her on her back on the bed, his mouth fastened on hers as she wraps her legs around his waist. They have to be quick (she doesn’t want it to be quick), and there are tears in her eyes when she comes.

There’s no time for cuddling, just a quick shower and throwing clothes into her bags. Steve helps her carry her bags downstairs, to where the car is waiting, everyone gathered around it to say goodbye. Clint and Natasha are the last ones out to the car, Natasha apparently having done some arcane computer magic to keep them under the radar. There are hugs all around, assurances that they’ll see each other again soon, jokes about the ones being left behind living like royalty. 

Mattie doesn’t hug Bucky, but she puts her hand on his face, feeling that tiny, instinctive flinch before he relaxes again.

“Take care of him for me,” she says.

“Been doing _that_ since we were kids,” he says, and she thinks she hears a grin in his voice.

She leans up on her toes and kisses his cheek.

“You’re a good man,” she says. He doesn’t answer.

Then it’s one last kiss with Steve, not caring that everyone is looking at them, and she’s climbing into the back of the car with Hope, Scott, and Clint. As they drive away, Scott tries to make a joke, and Hope shushes him. Clint nudges Mattie with his shoulder.

“You OK?”

“Fine,” she lies.

“It’ll all work out.”

“I know.”

He nods, and the car is quiet.

“So, looking forward to seeing your family?” Hope says.

“Yeah,” Clint says. “I owe my kids a water-skiing trip, probably going to do that as soon as I get back.”

“We should do something like that with Cassie,” Scott says enthusiastically.

“Does she like water-skiing?” Hope says.

“Don’t know, but we could go camping, or something. She likes bugs, we could find somewhere with interesting bugs.”

“She’d want to bring Chuck with us.”

“So? We shrink him down for the car ride, blow him back up when we get there…”

And Mattie smiles, because it’s hard not to around Scott, even though she feels like she left half of herself behind in the palace. She lets the conversation wash over her, Scott explaining about his daughter’s pet ant (“He’s about the size of a dog.”), and forces herself not to cry.

_How long did you think you were going to last like that?_

How long can she last on her own?


	7. New York, Always

The plane lands in a private airfield outside of New York. Officially, the passengers are members of the King of Wakanda’s personal security staff, and have been entrusted with setting up security protocols for the permanent mission. There are seven passengers when the plane lands, although the immigration officials only see three.

Scott and Hope put on their suits and shrink out of sight while the immigration officials inspect the plane, while Clint and Mattie use the time-honored spy tactic of “hiding behind things”. Once the immigration officials are gone, T’Challa’s staff escort them off the plane into a chauffeured car, which takes them into New York.

Clint has an apartment in Bed-Stuy that he keeps under a false name (a remnant from his SHIELD days), so the car drops them there. Scott and Hope will stay with him for the night, then he’ll get them back to San Francisco before heading home to Iowa. Mattie declines his offer to stay for a drink, and wishes everyone a safe trip home.

She takes the subway into Manhattan, letting the screech and shaking of the trains distract her from thinking too much.

Her phone has twenty messages, most of them from Karen (all of them from before they spoke in Wakanda). There are a few from Becky, just checking that she’s all right. There’s one from the FBI, dated the day after the breakout from the Raft.

She calls Becky first.

“Mattie, oh my God, are you OK?”

“Yeah,” Mattie says. “Sorry, I turned my phone off, I couldn’t…couldn’t deal with that.”

“Claire said you were…in pretty bad shape. I would have come over to check on you, but -”

“Yeah, I know, my building’s not wheelchair accessible.”

“Uh-huh. How are you doing?”

“I’m, uh, feeling better. I’ll be back in the office tomorrow.”

“Oh, good. I was running out of things for Kirsten to do.” Mattie laughs. “Hey, there were some FBI guys looking for you at the office earlier this week.”

“Yeah, they called me. I’m gonna call them back right now.”

“OK. Is this about…Steve?”

“Probably. Don’t worry about it, it’s probably just routine stuff.”

The FBI agent on the phone is very polite, and asks her to come in to their offices the next day. Mattie agrees. She doesn’t have much of a choice.

It’s Sunday, so she goes to the evening Mass, praying for strength and patience, and for Steve and the others’ safety.

Monday in the office is its usual insanity. There are phone calls, there are meetings, there’s the contract from the Wakandan permanent mission. Claire manages to find fifteen minutes to trap Mattie in her office and demand to know if the feds are after her.

“I don’t think they’re after Mattie Murdock,” Mattie says.

“And other you?” Claire says.

“Probably.”

Claire sighs. “That’s the best it’s gonna get, isn’t it?”

“Yup.”

Claire shakes her head. “You’re not sorry at all, are you?”

Mattie smiles. “Why would I be?”

The feds are perfectly professional when she arrives at their offices, asking the expected questions about Steve and the others.

“And I believe that you’ve had some dealings with Daredevil, Ms Murdock?” says the agent.

“Pardon me?”

“Your former firm, during the Wilson Fisk case, she provided you with some of the evidence that made the foundation of that case, and she rescued your client from his abduction. As well as saving your former legal assistant from an attempted murder?”

“Yes, but I’ve never personally met her.”

“So, you wouldn’t be able to describe her?”

“I’m sorry, no.”

“Did she give you any means of contacting her?”

“No.”

“Have you had any contact with her since the Fisk case?”

“Not personally.”

“Do you know someone who has?”

“My former legal assistant, Karen Page, was abducted last winter, and rescued by Daredevil. My former client, Frank Castle, also had dealings with her, although I’m not sure in what capacity. And I’m acquainted with Detective Mahoney, who I believe has had some contact with her over the past few months.” The agent writes down the names, and Mattie silently apologizes to Karen and Brett for sending the feds to their doors.

“And what about Steve Rogers?”

“I had a lot of contact with him over the past five months.”

“Did he have any contact with Daredevil?”

“Not that I’m aware of.”

“Would he have had any occasion to meet her?”

“I can’t think of any.”

The agent thanks her for her time, and she’s free to go. 

When she gets back to the office, Becky holds out a bubble-wrap envelope.

“This came for you.” She puts it in Mattie’s hand. She can feel something small and hard, and a coiled cord, and she can hear a crunch of paper when she squeezes the package.

“Thanks, Becky.”

She opens it when she’s alone in her office. A phone and charger fall out. Cheap and disposable. A burner. The paper has three words printed in braille: “I love you.”

She smiles as she shreds the note.

That evening, she hears Tony’s mechanized heartbeat when she’s three floors down from her apartment.

_Why do I even bother having a lock?_

“Hi, Tony,” she says as she opens the door. “Been waiting long?”

“‘Bout a week,” he says. “Feds let me know when you showed up.”

“Nice to have friends,” she says sarcastically. “What do you want?”

He pulls out a stack of paper, dropping it on the counter.

“What’s this?” she says.

“The Sokovia Accords. And a job offer.”

She can only laugh. “I’m sorry, are you asking me to _join_?”

“Well, we need more women on the team, since apparently, two guys and a male-identifying synthezoid aren’t diverse enough for the oversight committee.”

“Why the hell would I join up with you?”

“Because you’re going to need protection. And soon. I told you not to do anything stupid.”

“I didn’t. I very carefully weighed the pros and cons and made an informed decision.”

“And now Daredevil’s on everyone’s radar. It’s only a matter of time before somebody puts two and two together. You being MIA for the past week wasn’t exactly subtle.”

“So let them come after me. I’m not signing.”

He nods, as if he was expecting this. “Yeah, well, I tried,” he says flippantly. “Just one more thing - what’s this about?” He tosses a burner phone of his own and a piece of paper onto the counter. She brushes her fingertips over them.

“A phone and a piece of paper,” she says dryly. “You tell me.”

“Don’t bullshit me, Hornhead, I’ve seen what you can do, the blind act doesn’t work on me.”

“Too bad, because it’s actually true.” Tony scoffs. “You want to see my medical records? Shine a light in my eye?”

“Fine.”

“I assume there’s something written on this?” she says, holding up the paper. She can feel writing on it, smell the ink, but she’s not about to let Tony know that.

“Yeah. It’s a letter. From your boyfriend.”

“To you?”

Tony doesn’t seem inclined to read it out to her, so she turns on her scanner and puts the paper on the flatbed. She puts in one earbud of her headphones and has her screen reader read the letter to her.

“My faith’s in people, I guess.” She can practically hear Steve’s voice coming through the words. “Individuals. And I’m happy to say that, for the most part, they haven’t let me down. Which is why I can’t let them down either…”

Tony is pacing around her apartment as the letter is read to her. She resists the temptation to tell him not to touch anything. When the letter is finished, she opens a bottle of beer. She doesn’t offer Tony one.

“So this is really why you’re here,” she says.

“Figured you’d know something about this.”

“Like what?”

“Like what the hell he thinks _this_ is going to do.”

“Sounds like he wanted to apologize,” she says bluntly. 

“Does he seriously think he can just _apologize_ for something like that?”

“Why are you asking me? I’m not here for you to take out your frustrations about Steve. You want to yell at him?” She shoves the phone across the counter to him. “He’s given you a way to do that, too.”

“He tell you? What Barnes did?”

“Yes.”

“That man killed my parents.”

“So?” she says unsympathetically. “He was also tortured and brainwashed for seventy years -”

“You wouldn’t understand.”

“Actually, I do.” She leans forward on the counter. “I held the life of the man who killed my father in my hands. And I couldn’t do it. So don’t go launching into this ‘I have a right to revenge’ crap, because I’m not buying it.”

Tony hesitates. “What’d you do?”

“I beat the shit out of him. And then I called the cops.”

“And that made it all better?” he drawls.

“I felt like shit. But I’ve made my peace with that.”

He nods, and starts for the door.

“How’s Rhodey?” she says.

“Better. Walking, with assistance. Helen thinks she can regrow some of the nerve tissue.”

“Good. I’m glad.”

“…Yeah.”

He walks away, closing the door behind him.

The conversation keeps her awake that night. Not Tony, not the Accords, but Steve’s letter. _They haven’t let me down yet. Which is why I can’t let them down either._ She turns her burner over in her hands, trying to calculate what time it is in Wakanda.

Around midnight, she calls the number programmed into the phone, the one the phone announces is “Nomad.”

“Hey, Mattie,” comes Steve’s voice.

“Hey, sweetheart,” she says.

“You got it.”

“Yeah, and your note. Love you too.”

“How’s New York?”

“Good. Tony came to see me.”

“What’d he want?”

“To yell at me about your letter. And to try to get me to sign the Accords.”

“Shit, I’m sorry, Mattie, I didn’t mean for him to come after you -“

“It’s OK. At least I got to read your letter. What you said, about having faith in people…I don’t know, it…” _It’s been keeping me up._

“Mattie. Hey. You OK?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m good.”

“I believe in you, too, you know.”

“I know.”

“I miss you.”

“Me too.”

He sighs. “What time is it there?” 

“Just after midnight.”

“You just get in?”

“No, not going out tonight.”

“Then you should get some sleep. I’ll call in a few days.”

“OK. Love you.”

“Love you too.”

Karen calls her the next day to let her know that the article will be printed in the morning.

“Just…you might get bombarded with interview requests, after we print,” she says.

“Thanks for the heads up.”

She goes out that night, heading down into Chinatown to dissuade the Chinese heroin dealers from moving north into Hell’s Kitchen. She knows word will get back to the old woman at the head of the organization, and she’s not holding her breath that the woman will be intimidated. It’s just foreplay between the two of them. After the first few dealers go down, she hears the police radios as they converge on her location.

“Priority is Daredevil’s capture. Repeat, priority is Daredevil’s capture.”

 _Great._ She’s going to have _words_ for Brett the next time she drops in on him.

Unfortunately, the dealers seem to have got the memo, because they bounce back, surprisingly resilient, wasting her time as the police approach. The cars are already pulling up as she knocks the last one down, her back to the cops.

“Hands on your head!” one calls. She turns her head, knowing that she’s probably an impressive sight standing over the fallen dealers, lit with flashing lights. “I said, hands on your head!” The cop’s heart is beating a mile a minute. He’s scared, he doesn’t want to be doing this.

She turns slowly, deliberately, letting her body unfurl with every movement. The cop’s partner is radioing that they have Daredevil here. A second car pulls up, and Brett gets out.

“Shit,” he says articulately. He pulls out his gun, too. “Let’s make this easy on everybody,” he calls.

“You don’t want to do this,” she says. Her clubs are still in her hands.

“Doesn’t matter what I want, we’re taking you in.”

She smiles.

“You going to shoot me, Detective?” She takes a step forward, and the first cop flinches. Brett doesn’t. “I think we both know you’re not going to do that.”

Brett raises his gun to shoulder level.

“Hands on your head,” he says.

She raises both hands, a club still in each one, and lets them fly. The guns are knocked out of two of the cops’ hands as she vaults onto the first car, the grappling line in her hand, pulling the clubs back to her. She flips over their heads, knocking the first cop into the door of his car, his partner to the ground. Brett’s partner fires, and she kicks the gun out of his grip, bashing his head off the side of the car, before grabbing Brett and pushing him against the hood of the car.

“I told you before,” she growls against his ear, “I’m not the bad guy.”

“Lot of people think you are,” he snaps, and she has to admire his cool.

“Ask yourself,” she says, “do you trust any of _them_? Or do you trust what you’ve seen?” She squeezes his arm where she’s holding it, then pushes him forward as she runs, vaulting up the side of a building and disappearing onto the rooftops. As she parkours away, she hears him mutter, “Fuck.”

Karen’s article goes up on the _Bulletin_ ’s website that morning. By the time she gets in to the office, she has five messages from various news outlets asking for an interview about her relationship with Steve, with more coming in by the minute. Some of them try to phrase it as “we’d love to hear his side of the story.” Others are more blatant, “We’re very interested in the human side of Captain America,” or, even worse, “We feel that this is a love story our readers could be very invested in.” And then there’s the porn website that just wants to know about her sex life (she saves _that_ one so she can send it to Karen later).

She finally gets to read the article once she tells Becky to start screening the calls. It’s good, Karen’s best work yet, in her opinion. It outlines the violations of constitutional rights, the disregard for due process, and the outright illegality of the application of the Sokovia Accords. To Mattie’s surprise, Tony is quoted speaking about the Raft, with a clear disdain for its use. Mattie herself is quoted throughout, as well as a source with the Joint Counter-Terrorism Task Force that Mattie assumes is Sharon.

Two-thirds of the way through, she hears “Franklin Nelson, a junior partner at New York’s Hogarth, Chao & Benowitz, offered his analysis of the fugitives’ legal position.” Foggy is quoted describing the legal ramifications of any case against Steve and his friends (any American court would be obligated to throw the case out).

“As a civilian and a New Yorker,” Foggy’s quote continues, “I would also offer the opinion that the world is facing dangers that we have no way of anticipating. The Avengers were the only force able to combat those kinds of dangers. We saw it in New York, we saw it in Sokovia. By literally criminalizing the people who have protected us, the Accords have made us more vulnerable to attack. The world doesn’t need the Avengers to be regulated. It needs more people like them who are willing to risk their lives for the sake of us all. I’m from Hell’s Kitchen. We know about heroes.”

Mattie swallows around the lump in her throat.

_You don’t get to create danger and then protect us from that danger._

_My faith’s in people._

_Which is why I can’t let them down either._

She’s let a lot of people down in her life. And now it’s time to start making amends.

She picks up the phone, and finds the contact. It rings twice.

“Mattie?” Even his voice makes her heart ache.

“Hey, Foggy.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you, everyone, for all your kind words and encouragement!


End file.
